


Other Lives

by peldarjoi



Series: Terrorists Don't Get to Be Heroes [4]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Bajorans, Canon-Typical Violence, Cardassians, Gen, Non-Explicit Sex, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-11-14 05:16:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peldarjoi/pseuds/peldarjoi
Summary: Short stories of some of the secondary characters in the "Terrorists Don't Get to Be Heroes" story.Cadda: The worst the Cardassians could do wasn't enough to break her.Ren: Tragedy after tragedy is sometimes what it takes to make a hero.Joial: Finding what they're fighting for.Ren and Kee: He taught her to kill to survive. She didn't give him any other choice.Jeff: Not so inconspicuous.





	1. Cadda

Cardassians shoved Cadda, half-conscious, into a crowded cell. From her position on the floor she heard the force field reactivate. She slowly pushed herself off of the floor and without looking up at the other prisoners.

She’d been with her cell when the Cardassians hit them hard out of nowhere. They knew other cells had been wiped out and thought they’d taken enough precautions. Clearly not. No matter how hard they fought, there were always more of them. The small group of rebels had been overwhelmed and wiped out in a matter of hours. She was the only one left.

A pair of dirty, worn-out shoes stepped in front of her and a moment later a man bent down to face her with an outstretched hand. “I’m Curtol Jesoc.”

She looked down at her own hands, dirty, bruised and bloodstained, then reached out and allowed him to help her over to the bench. “Cadda.” She told him, burying her equally dirty, bruised and bloodstained face in her hands.

“Is that your family name or your given name?”

Finally, she looked up. “My given name. I dropped my family name when I left them.”

His eyes flicked briefly to her earring from which she had removed all ornamentation. “I see.” After a beat, he said, “They won’t allow you to rest here for long, they’ll come for you soon.”

She knew that but it still sent a chill down her spine. “I know.”

“I have something to help you.”

She looked into his eyes for the first time, “What?”

“Trust me for a moment.” He said then reached forward and kissed her. She tried to pull away but he held the back of her neck, finally slipping a tiny cylindrical object into her mouth.

She pulled back, rolling the object with her tongue.

“It’s called ‘bliss’. Tuck it in your cheek and when the pain gets too much for you to bear, crush it with your teeth.”

She tucked it away as she was told. “They don’t scan for it?”

“Their sensors can’t differentiate it from your body, they won’t know until you use it.”

“Why give it to me? What do you want in exchange?”

“Nothing. I just want to do what I can to help protect the Resistance.”

* * *

The Cardassians came for her. They tortured her. She screamed in response to the unbearable pain. She wanted to die, but they wouldn’t allow it. They wanted to know things that would help them capture or kill the remaining resistance in Joralla. She knew those things and she was afraid they’d make her tell them.

Finally, when the pain was too much and she sobbed with labored breaths, she pulled the tiny cylinder out of the fold of her cheek and crushed it between her teeth. It felt like a shockwave had pulsed outward from it. Immediately the pain was gone. Her head lolled back and her whole body relaxed. When she opened her eyes, everything was tinted blue like she could _see_ the air itself. She felt like her mind had detached from her body by several centimeters.

The Cardassians were still there, but it seemed like they were far away. Their voices echoed like they were at the other end of a cavern and she could only make out bits and pieces.

_“… useless to us now…”_

_“…locating the source…”_

_“… can’t… coming from…”_

_“… progress… counteragent?”_

_“…still… no effect… test cases.”_

She didn’t care anyway. All that mattered was the beautiful blue surrounding her.

* * *

Over and over Jesoc gave her a vile of bliss and over and over they tortured her until she used it. They tried scanning her, searching her but it was too tiny for them to find. At first, she tried to go as long as she could without using it, but after weeks of this pain, she’d started using it right away when they took her away. It didn’t matter if she became addicted, they were going to kill her anyway.

She wasn’t sure where Jesoc was getting all of it, but it didn’t matter, it kept coming.

_Until._

Until the day they’d found out he was the source. They took him away and she never saw him after that.

* * *

The Cardassians came for her again, but this time she didn’t have any bliss. She resisted passively even though she knew it was no use. As they dragged her through the corridor she realized that this wasn’t the way to the interrogation room. Panic shot through her chest like an icy dagger, but she was so weak from torture and starvation that she could do nothing but allow them to drag her to their destination. She desperately wished she had some bliss.

Finally, they came to a stop in front of a doorway that opened when they approached. Inside was an office with a desk and a pair of chairs, a replicator behind the desk, a conference table off to one side and to the other side a low couch. Behind the desk stood the glinn. This was his private office. She struggled against the guards with fear and panic, but they were too strong for her.

They hauled her over near the couch, turned her around and pushed her back up against the wall. Then they roughly raised her arms over her head and attached the restraints to a short chain that was secured to the wall. Cadda pulled at it but it wouldn’t budge.

When the glinn stood in front of her with a knife in his hand she said brazenly, “I don’t care what you do, I won’t tell you anything.”

“Oh, I have no more questions for you. Our operation in the Joralla hills is complete. Any information you might have had is now worthless to us.” He said in that sickeningly calm voice, “Ordinarily you’d be executed at this point, but I thought you might still be of some use to me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as he raised the knife, but instead of carving into her skin, he began to methodically cut away her clothes. Her heart pounded in her ears as pieces of her clothes fell away to reveal her naked body. When he was finished, he tucked the knife into his belt and picked up a dermal regenerator from the desk and began healing the wounds that remained from their last torture session. Tears seeped out the corners of her eyes as she stood there, helpless to stop his probing hands.

Finally, he stood up, smiling. “There, you see? No more bruises.”

She realized he had something else in his hand. When he pressed it to her neck she felt soft pressure and heard a hiss. She would find out many years later that the hypospray contained a drug that had made her sterile.

“My name is Daezak, by the way.” Then leaned in to kiss her.

If there had been anything in her stomach she might have vomited right then. She turned her face away to break the seal his lips made on hers. He only laughed and slid his arms around her naked waist, then reached down to grasp her buttock with one hand and his other hand came up to fondle her breast.

She couldn’t prevent a pitiful whimper from escaping her throat, but it only encouraged him. He stepped back to remove the outer portion of his uniform then returned, pressing his body against hers. He wedged his knee between her legs to pry them apart and reached down to position himself.

Cadda screamed.

* * *

After he’d finished with her, he released the restraints from the wall and she collapsed to the floor. He left her there for a long while, curled up, naked and sobbing.

Eventually he’d come back in and replicated two plates of food. One he set on his desk and the other he dropped in front of her. As hungry as she was, she couldn’t stand the thought of accepting food from him and pushed it away.

“Eat!” He demanded. “You’re too skinny as it is.”

But when she continued to refuse, he grabbed her and raped her again, violently. The next day he offered her food again, she refused, another violent episode. On the third day, her hunger overwhelmed her and she ate a small amount. That time when he raped her, it was more gentile, but somehow all the more disgusting.

The same scenario played out over and over for weeks. If she refused to eat, violence. When she ate, he did it gently. She could see exactly what he was doing, but doubted she’d be able to outlast him on this game.

She’d tried several times to break into the computer but it could only be accessed with his thumbprint. Same with the replicator and the door locks. Even if she could get out of this room, she wouldn’t get very far naked and with her wrists bound.

He expected her to sit and sleep on the couch, but she preferred the floor. While he was away attending to his duties she had plenty of time to think. She despaired at the thought that she would spend the rest of her life like this. She thought about home and began to wonder if it was worth it to leave only to end up like this. She thought about the members of her resistance cell, slaughtered. She wondered how many other women had spent the last little bit of their lives here.

The door opened and he sauntered in as he usually did. She refused to acknowledge him. He continued over to the replicator to order two plates of food, but this time he set hers on the desk opposite him. The room was dead silent while she considered her options. He only waited patiently, smugly.

She hated the idea of complying with any of his wishes. She could keep fighting him at every turn. Defying him. But for how long? How long would it take to break her? Then she’d never get away. But if she cooperated, made him think he’d broken her, maybe there was a chance he’d begin to let his guard down.

She forced herself to stand and walk over to the desk, the desk that had been the location of several of the assaults, and sat down.

“There now.” He said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Without making eye contact she picked at the food. He never gave her utensils. She tried not to notice the satisfied look on his face. After they’d eaten he maneuvered her over to the couch where he would no doubt rape her again. This time she gave no resistance.

* * *

After a few more days of complacency, he finally decided he could remove the restraints. Her wrists were bruised and raw underneath. He used the dermal regenerator on them with a tenderness that made her feel sick.

Weeks passed and the daily assaults continued. She so badly wanted to fight him, hit him, scream at him, but she sunk into herself. Bided her time. One day he came in and didn’t bother with any pretense at civility, just pushed her down onto the floor right where she was. She allowed him to do what he wanted to do to her, this time responding to him a bit.

He liked it. She hated herself for it.

While he was inside of her she gently placed her hands on his back. When he was fully in the moment she summoned every bit of courage she had and reached down to the knife tucked in his belt. She grasped the hilt, pulled it out and plunged it into the back of his neck, sinking it deep between the vertebrae and severing his spinal cord. His body immediately went limp on top of her.

She pulled out the knife and it took her several tries to roll his body off of her. When she did, she knelt next to him, stretched out his arm and laid his thumb flat on the floor. He watched her, completely paralyzed, unable to speak or move as she pressed the blade of the knife against the knuckle and placed her heel on top of the knife for leverage. Then she pressed down with all of her weight to slice through skin and sever the joint.

She plucked the disembodied digit off of the floor and moved behind his desk to press it against the sensor pad. The console obediently came to life, then she turned around to the replicator and unlocked it. She first replicated some suitable clothes. Something that would be sensible for outdoors. Once she’d dressed she replicated a plate of the spiciest hasperat the computer had on file.

After taking a few bites she worked on an escape plan. She’d be able to use the severed thumb to access any locks on her way out, she just needed to avoid being seen. She stole a glance at him while taking another bite. His eyes were fixed and unseeing now. She’d missed the point where he’d actually died, but that didn’t matter. He was nothing to her.

She walked over to the body and found a handkerchief in one of his pockets. With the last little bit of hasperat in one hand, she used the handkerchief to pick up the thumb with the other hand and wrapped it up. Finally, she dropped the last bite into her mouth as she stepped over his body on her way to the door.

* * *

With her newfound access, it was a simple matter to make her way out of the building. She used the thumb to call up the sensors on a wall panel to show her current personnel positions to better avoid them. Once outside, she tossed the thumb into a row of bushes and disappeared into the night forest. It would most likely be morning by the time anybody realized what had happened and she was long gone by then.

The woods here were less familiar to her and she traveled all night, keeping the straightest possible rout away from the facility. She couldn’t tell how far she’d traveled, but at daybreak no soldiers came looking for her so she took that to mean she’d gone far enough.

The forest opened up to a clearing where she found a refugee settlement under the overpass of a Cardassian roadway. Weary and exhausted, she dragged herself past the shelters and found a secluded place under the structure of the roadway where she could lay down and quickly fell asleep.

* * *

Cadda awoke suddenly to screaming and at first she thought she was still in the interrogation center. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was. She blinked the sleep away, thinking the screaming was just in a dream. Then she heard it again, a woman, not far away. She leapt to her feet and charged toward the source.

She came upon three Bajoran men holding down a woman and their intentions were clear. “Hey! Back off!” She called, continuing to walk toward them.

One of them turned to confront her, “Maybe you should mind your own business.”

She smiled and turned as though she would leave but instead threw a punch that connected with his nose, then slammed her knee into his stomach and while he was doubled over, hit the base of his neck with her elbow. He slumped to the ground unconscious.

Cadda turned to the other two who began to back away.

She walked toward them and they ran in different directions. Gaging the one she could most likely catch, she took off after him. When she caught up with him she grabbed him from behind and pulled him to the ground. They rolled a couple of times with their momentum, but she made sure she ended up on top. She straddled him, pinning his arms down with her knees.

He struggled against her, but she reached back and pulled out her knife and pressed it against his forehead. “You like being a rapist?” She said, leaning close. “Then maybe I should engrave that right here.” She emphasized her intent by pressing the tip of the knife hard enough to break the skin on his forehead until a drop of blood trickled out.

“No. Please.” He begged.

She stared into his eyes, “If I catch you again, that’s exactly what I’ll do.” With that, she stood up to let him go. As he was hurrying away she called, “That goes for your friends too!”

Cadda turned to the woman, who had remained to see what happened. “Are you ok?”

She smiled, “Thanks to you.” She walked over to her, “My name is Oajia.”

“Cadda.” She smiled back. “I’m happy to help.”

* * *

Cadda maintained an unofficial vigil over the women here. In response, they shared food and a blanket with her. Oajia begged her to teach her how to defend herself and was picking up the basics quite well.

She had settled into some semblance of a life here, but she found herself gazing at the forest for hours at a time. The people here told her what had happened after her cell had been hit. So many others. Some wiped out completely and others decimated. She wondered how many were still out there and if she’d ever have a chance to rejoin the Resistance.

On a bitter cold morning in late fall she sat, perched on one of the support structures for the overpass where she had a good view of the encampment. Two figures emerged from the forest. A middle-aged man and an early-teen girl. She launched herself to her feet, at first assuming some kind of impropriety in the relationship. But after she watched them for a few minutes it was clear they were Resistance. They had to be.

The pair stopped to warm themselves by a bonfire as Cadda climbed down from her perch and by the time she reached them, they were heading straight for Hizag’s shelter. “My name is Cadda. I want to join you.” She said, looking the man directly in the eye.

He shook his head and kept walking, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cadda hurried around in front of them so they had to stop. “I can tell from a kellipate away that you’re Resistance. So am I, or, I was. I want to join you.” When he didn’t consent, she continued, “I was a member of Eru’s cell.”

“Eru was wiped out.” He said flatly.

“Yes!” She urged desperately, “I survived and was taken prisoner. I spent weeks in an interrogation center.” Her voice wavered, “I escaped and came here. I have nowhere to go, I want to be back in the fight!”

The man regarded her for a long moment. “We’ll be back through here shortly.”

“I’ll be here.” She promised. As the pair moved on she could hear the girl arguing with him about her. She didn’t care, she had at least gotten him to listen to her. She hurried to where she knew she’d find Oajia.

“I want you to know I’m leaving.” She told her.

Oajia dropped what she was doing, “Where?!”

“Back to the Resistance.” She hugged her, and hurried away without allowing her to argue.

Next, she took a side trip over to where she knew the gang of men would be. She stalked up to them and stood in the middle of their group. “I’m leaving. But I’ll be back to do what I promised if I hear any of you have been breaking my rules.” They responded with only grumbled curses, but she didn’t care. She hurried back to find the two Resistance members heading back the way they’d come and she fell in step with them, working to keep the foolish smile off of her face.


	2. Ren

“How could you be so reckless?” Larn shouted.

“It’s only reckless if there’s no purpose to it! And the Resistance _has_ a purpose.” Jassi shot back.

“Provoking the Cardassians only makes things worse. We’re barely making it by as is.” He could see that he wasn’t getting through to her, his sister could be far more stubborn than the average Bajoran. Definitely more than him. Ever since they were children, he’d never been able to argue her down. Their teenage years had only intensified it.

“Yes, it’s a risk, but I think it’s a risk that more of us need to take.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

She sighed heavily, “It doesn’t mean _anything_. Just that the Resistance needs everyone who’s willing to make these sacrifices.”

He didn’t need the recruitment speech and was about to say so when a furious coughing fit caught his attention from the other room.

The argument forgotten, both siblings rushed to comfort their mother in her bed. Larn lifted her up gently to ease her breathing while Jassi retrieved the hypospray. She fingered hurriedly through the empty vials for an unused one, but found nothing.

Jassi looked up at him with an expression on her face that made his heart sink. Without the medication, their mother’s condition would get much worse very fast. There was little chance she’d recover even with it, but at least they’d been able to ease her suffering.

Larn slowly lowered her back onto the bed while Jassi took over. He walked quickly into the other room and reached for the small ceramic bowl they kept the family money in and spilled its contents into his hand. Even without counting it, he could tell it wasn’t enough.

He could only stand there and stare at the tiny collection of coins in his hand.

“It’s not enough.” Jassi said from the doorway. She’d had to stop working when their mother fell ill and even when he had work every day, his income didn’t nearly cover their needs.

Finally, he shoved the coins in his pocket. “Maybe Chail will give me credit.” He said, turning toward the door for the dispensary.

“Doubtful.” She said, but he was already out the door.

* * *

Larn hadn’t really expected the town’s druggist to give him credit, but the denial still stung. They’d have no chance of paying it off anyway. But he’d had to try. His mother was going to die, but they’d at least hoped to be able to ease her suffering. They couldn’t stand the thought of taking her to the Cardassian hospital. The horror stories that came out of that place made his stomach turn. He’d rather she die in her own home than like that.

These thoughts continued to repeat in and endless loop on his way home, but as he neared their house, he saw the dreadful sight of thick, black smoke rising from somewhere beyond the crest of the hill. He immediately broke into a run.

He sprinted up over the rise, right into a pack of Cardassians watching their handiwork: his home, engulfed in flames. Two of them turned immediately to grab him and hold him in place. Larn desperately looked for his sister and mother, but they were nowhere.

“Where are they?!” He demanded.

A third Cardassian turned toward him, saying, “This is your home?”

“Where are my sister and mother?” He repeated, ignoring the ingrained training to speak to them with at least feigned respect as the feeling of dread deepened.

“I’m willing to assume for the moment that you were not also involved in the terrorist attack last night.”

Larn finally tore his attention away from the flames to face him. So, that’s what this was? “Please, where are they?”

“Oh, they’re right at home.” He said pleasantly.

His wide eyes slowly turned back to the burning home, unwilling to believe he’d understood correctly. He jerked back when part of the building collapsed.

Then he heard her. Jassi’s voice, screaming from inside.

“No!” He surged forward, breaking away from the soldiers that had been holding him in place, desperate to get to her. But he didn’t get far. Hands firmly grasped his arms and shoulders and pulled him back, throwing him to the ground.

The Cardassians circled around him and began kicking and punching him there on the ground. After the first few blows, he automatically put up his arms to protect his face and pulled his knees to his chest, but they somehow still managed to get around them.

He didn’t care. Nothing they could do to him could equal the pain he felt as he watched the flames past the boots of the soldiers beating him. After some amount of time that he couldn’t perceive, he fell into blackness.

* * *

Slowly Larn awoke, unsure if it had been reality or a dream. His first clue was the pain in his head, his back, his stomach, pretty much everywhere. He dreaded opening his eyes to confirm what he already suspected, but the smell of burned wood and synthetic materials told him anyway.

Finally, he swallowed hard and opened his eyes.

He thought he’d been prepared for it, but the sight of the smoldering ruins of his home hit him so hard he thought he might vomit. Instead, he knelt in the gravel while his body shook with sobs as the tears stung the cuts on his face from the beating.

He had no idea how long he’d been there like that. Their home was remote, no one passed by. He tried to begin the prayer for the dead, but couldn’t seem to get past the first few words.

After what seemed like an eternity, he pushed himself off of the ground and turned his back on the rubble to face the forest and began walking.

He walked in no particular direction, just away into the trees. The boundary of their village wasn’t far away. If he passed it, and was picked up by the sensor sweeps, he’d be arrested under the assumption that he was with the Resistance and end up executed. That didn’t seem like such a bad thing anymore. Maybe they’d even shoot him on site rather than taking him somewhere for interrogation.

He reached the grey boundary markers and stepped across without slowing down and continued onward.

Sounds, like thunder, rumbled behind him from the direction of the village. He turned but couldn’t see anything through the trees. Then more sounds, similar but no so low pitched.

He stumbled backward when a man rushed out of the brush from the direction he’d been heading.

The man’s face and clothes were streaked with dirt and he had a phaser rifle slung across his back. “What are you doing out here?” The man demanded.

“I… um…” Larn stammered.

“It doesn’t matter. You need to get out of here, kid. This place is about to become a war zone.” Without waiting for him to respond, the man rushed off toward the sounds of weapons fire.

Larn only stood there, hesitating between turning his back on everything connected with his pain and the knowledge that innocent people were going to get in the crossfire when that battle moved into the town.

Finally, he made up his mind, turning back the way he’d come.

* * *

He’d pounded frantically on doors to warn people to get out until his knuckles were bruised. By the sound of it, the battle was edging closer and closer to his position but there was always one more shop, one more house, one more family to warn.

He realized he’d pushed it too far when phaser fire pounded the ground at his feet. He dove behind a waste disposal unit and heard the energy blasts pummel the other side of it. He looked left and right, but he was trapped.

There was an alley way to his right, next to the last shop he’d tried where there’d been no answer. If he could run fast enough, he could get away down that alley.

He waited until he hadn’t heard anyone firing at him for several minutes then crouched on the balls of his feet to prepare. Without allowing himself to second-guess the plan, he sprang out of his hiding place and sprinted for the alley.

Phaser blasts bit at his heels, but he stayed just ahead. He’d only gotten as far as the shop’s extended stoop when he nearly collided into someone in the dark. A pair of hands grabbed his shoulders and whispered a distinctly feminine _shush_.

“You can’t go that way. They’re right around the corner.” She whispered.

“They’re over there too.” He whispered back, pointing the way he’d come.

When she peeked through the porch railing, the street lamps lit up part of her face and he could see that she was close to his age. Eighteen or nineteen, but definitely not more than twenty.

“I’d rather take my chances with your guys than the ones on my tail.” She said. “What’s your name?”

“Ren Larno.” He said awkwardly, she probably wasn’t asking for his full name.

“Well, Larn,” He could hear her moving around, “Have you ever used one of these?” She asked, pressing a phaser into his hand.

“Um… no.” He fumbled with it.

“That’s ok. Just point at the Cardassians and tap the firing key. There are enough of them, chances are you’ll hit something.” She peeked at the incoming forces again, this time he could only see her eyes. They were light brown and crystal clear. “We’re going to fire back at them steadily while we get to that comm terminal, then to the kiosk beyond that and so on.”

He swallowed hard, preparing to obey.

“My name’s Veya, by the way.” She said quickly. “Ready.” It wasn’t a question. “Go!” She lifted quickly and controlled to her feet while raising her phaser rifle toward the enemy, already firing. Larn was so transfixed by the sight that he almost forgot to copy.

Using her confidence to bolster his own, which was non-existent, he stood up as much as he dared and fired wildly toward the Cardassian-shaped silhouettes in the street. Together they hurried backward toward their next cover.

“What were you doing out here anyway?” She asked when they were hidden behind it.

“I was trying to warn as many people as possible to get out before the fighting spread to this part of town.”

She eyed him, “That was a really stupid thing to do.”

“Yeah.” He agreed. He wasn’t sure what had come over him.

“But, thank you. You no doubt saved their lives.” She said, already preparing for their next move.

They continued in that way from one hiding place to the next, firing at the Cardassians to hold them back for over a block. Veya let him rest for a moment, saying, “The rest of my cell is that way.” She pointed a place on the other side of the soldiers pursuing them.

“Do you have a plan to get to them?”

She studied their surroundings uncertainly, “No. If we can’t manage to get around the spoonheads, we’ll be cut off.”

He looked around, he knew this part of the village well, though he hadn’t been here in a long time. Back before he had to work to support his family, when he’d had plenty of free time to explore and make mischief, he’d spend a lot of time here. There was a path through the woods behind a nearby building that would take them out to a remote part of the village where they might be able to cut through. And if the Cardassians followed, they’d have plenty of cover in the trees.

“I know a way we can get around. It’ll take longer, but it’s better than trying to cross that street.”

“Lead on.” She agreed.

* * *

Larn and Veya had to sprint through the forest to circumnavigate the battle zone and locate her cell. She insisted they were catching up to them even though he couldn’t hear anything. The rebels seemed to be completely silent out here.

Suddenly someone reached out of the brush and grabbed her. After an audible gasp, she relaxed when she recognized the man, but turned and slugged him in the shoulder, cursing. “You scared me!”

“Sorry, but we need to get out of here.”

“The village-” she began.

The man shook his head. “It’s a lost cause. There’s no one left alive in there anyway. It looks like most of them were able to evacuate.” The man glanced briefly at Larn, but didn’t challenge him. “The Cardassians are not far behind, we’re falling back to the river.” He turned and headed toward the river, assuming the other two would follow. Veya did, then without any other options, so did Larn.

They kept up a fast pace, but not as fast as before. The two rebels slipped gracefully through the forest with hardly a sound, but Larn had no such skill. He only hoped the racket he was making wouldn’t put the others in danger.

A few times they heard sounds that even he could tell came from Cardassians in pursuit, they made even more noise than he did. Each time, his two companions would adjust their direction and pick up speed. At least it was downhill to the river.

When they finally arrived, they found a small cluster of about a dozen fighters loosely grouped together. They greeted Veya and the man with recognition, then another man stepped toward them out of the group.

“Who’s this?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” The man who’d walked them here said. “He was with Veya.”

“His name’s Ren Larno.” She said, “I found him on the main street during the battle.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I was trying to warn people to get out while they could.” He said.

The man stared at him with a mix of disbelief and amusement. “You’re the one we have to thank for that?”

“I guess so.” He said sheepishly.

“Nice job. Your family name is Ren?”

“Yes.”

“Related to Jassi?”

“She was my sister. They killed her and my mother this morning.” Saying it out loud stung.

The man hung his head for a moment and shook it a bit. “I’m sorry. It’s best if you come with us for the moment. Once the heat is off, you can go where you want to go.”

Before he could respond, a woman appeared into the clearing and the man who’d been speaking to him turned his full attention to her. “Did you get it?”

She patted her shirt pocket. “Right here.”

“Good, let’s move out.” He announced and led the group away.

Larn quickly fell in line with the others next to Veya, who said, “Mazan’s not easily impressed.” She looked sidelong at him.

The man he’d first seen earlier that day at the beginning of the assault fell into step with them. “I thought I had told you to get out of the area.”

“I guess I’m not that good at following directions.”

The man laughed, “Welcome to the club, kid.”

* * *

They’d traveled non-stop until dawn, far enough for them to have lost their pursuers. After that late night waiting for his sister to come home when it turned out she’d been out with these people, followed by being beaten up by Cardassians, running from house to house to warn people, then finding himself in the midst of battle and finally this endless hike through the woods, Larn was more exhausted than he’d ever imagined. It took everything he had just to put one food in front of the other.

Mazan finally let them stop to rest and the weary group sunk down anywhere they could find.

Larn eyed the woman who had been the last to arrive at the rendezvous and wondered yet again what it was that she’d retrieved from the village. What was so important that the Cardassians would attack the entire population? It turned out he didn’t have to wonder much longer, Mazan held out his hand to the woman who placed an isolinear rod into it.

“This is what we’ve all worked so hard for over the last few months.” He told the group. “It contains backdoor codes for the computer systems of some of the biggest labor camps on this continent.” His eyes flicked over to Larn for an instant. “Jassi was supposed to be the one to take it to our contact in Dakur, but she’s no longer with us, so I need a volunteer.”

‘Jassi was supposed to be the one…’ the words rang in his ears. She’d been ready to deliver that priceless information to other cells? He’d argued with her that she shouldn’t have been involved at all. And for what? Because he couldn’t bear the burden of their mother’s condition alone?

He found himself speaking before he could stop himself. “I’ll do it.”

Mazan looked at him skeptically while a low chuckle moved through the group. “I don’t think you really want to do that.”

“She was my sister, it was her mission. It’s what she died for.”

“You’re not even a member of the Resistance.”

“Isn’t it enough that I’m willing?”

“You don’t know how to survive out there.”

“I’ll go with him.” Veya spoke up.

Mazan sighed heavily, considering the options while running his hand through his messy hair. “Alright, the two of you will go after you’ve had a chance to rest up. I don’t want any mistakes due to fatigue.”

Larn smiled as though he’d won some great prize when in reality, he’d probably just volunteered for his own death. He glanced over at Veya and she only rolled her eyes at him.

* * *

He and Veya had started out after they’d both managed to get a few hours of sleep while the others kept watch. His entire body ached still but at least his head was clearer.

They were making their way through the Joralla mountain foothills when the path they were following broke out of the trees briefly and they found themselves standing at the edge of a bluff. The view was unbelievably beautiful. Rolling hills, blanketed with green all the way to the horizon in every direction. The Jorallan mountain range rose up with a series of white peaks out of the forest. The only imperfection was a walled community nestled in the valley.

“Is that the refugee camp?” He asked her.

“Yeah.” She said forlornly.

With that they continued on in silence. Compared to places like that, he’d grown up in relative luxury. His family had had their own house, some money and a small amount of freedom. Those refugee camps, though, were overcrowded and brutal.

After another hour, he’d have sworn they’d walked around the entire base of the mountain and were back where they started if he hadn’t known better. The pleasing smells of food cooking began to drift through the air. He could distinctly detect onion and garlic, plus a few mixed herbs. His stomach twisted with hunger.

Soon they found the edge of a clearing where there was a small town. Veya called it Mokash. Just beyond the edge of the trees, they spotted the source of the cooking smells: a small diner that looked like it couldn’t have more than four tables in it.

Larn suddenly remembered the money he had shoved into his pocket what seemed like a century ago. He reached in, they were still there, and pulled them out to show them to Veya. “Might I have the privilege of buying you dinner?”

A smile spread across her face, revealing dimples he hadn’t known she had. “I would love to.” Then she lifted the phaser rifle off of her shoulder. “We’d better stash these.”

* * *

Larn had been right, the place had exactly four tables, all in a row on one side of the isle and a counter with stools on the other side, but the counter was so full of bottles and canisters that it was clear it was used for storage more than customers. The place might have been small, but the food was excellent, in fact, it had to have been the best meal he’d had in his life. Though, that might have just been because the only other thing he’d eaten in the last two days was one Cardassian ration packet.

He’d just set the money down onto the table to leave when the door swung open and three Cardassian soldiers marched in. Larn’s heart jumped into his throat.

Veya read his expression and said quietly. “Eyes down.”

The soldiers sauntered over to an empty table and sat to be waited on.

Veya licked her lips and pursed them. With a calming breath that eased her anxiety more than he could do for himself, she stood and turned toward the door without looking at the Cardassians.

He followed and they walked casually toward the door, but as they passed the Cardassians’ table, one of them reached out to grab Veya’s wrist.

“Leaving already?” He said smugly.

Larn could see the muscles in her neck twitch, but she only lowered her head and averted her eyes submissively. He'd long known what it meant to be female under Cardassian rule.

The Cardassian wasn’t deterred. He stood up, still holding her wrist firmly. “How about you join us?”

She didn’t budge.

The Cardassian became more insistent, “You _will_ join us.”

When he began sliding his hand around her waist, she finally made a move. She snatched a bottle off of the counter in a flash of movement and smashed it across the face of the Cardassian. Then yanked the hand phaser out of his belt and shot the other two while they were still frozen in shock.

She slid the phaser into the back of her waist band as she bent down to grab the Cardassian’s money pouch. She tossed it to the diner’s stunned proprietor and said. “Sorry about this, but you need to be out of here before anybody comes looking for them.”

Without giving the owner a chance to respond, she rushed out of the diner with Larn right behind.

They were back in the safety of the trees within seconds and she hurried to the spot where they’d stashed their weapons.

“That was stupid of me. I just destroyed that family’s business.” She said as she jerked away the vines that they’d used to cover the weapons.

“It’s not like you had any other choice.”

“Yes, I did.”

“What? Go with them and-”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” She muttered as she slung the phaser rifle across her back and stomped away.

* * *

They’d continued in silence until dusk when Veya found a place for them to stop for the night and lit a small fire. Not big enough to give off much heat, but it would keep the bugs away and provide some light.

She took the first watch so Larn laid down on the bare ground, but found he couldn’t sleep. After trying for a while, he finally sat back up.

Veya looked up from writing in a small notebook. She was even more beautiful in the firelight than she had been before.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He said.

She closed the book, “That’s okay.”

“What is that?”

“It’s nothing.”

“I doubt you’d be doing it if it were nothing.”

“You’d think it’s stupid.”

“Try me.”

She hesitated, but finally gave in, “Okay, but don’t laugh.”

“I promise.”

“I was raised to be a writer.” She paused to give him a chance to break his promise. When he didn’t, she continued, “It’s a book of poetry.”

“Why would I laugh at that? I think it’s great.”

“It’s a little bit ridiculous, isn’t it? We’re out here in a life and death struggle and I’m writing little poems.”

“I assume it helps you cope with that life and death struggle.”

“I guess so.” A smile finally crept into the corners of her lips.

“Besides that, it’s vital that we don’t lose our cultural heritage. Everything that was good about Bajor shouldn’t die out just because life is hard.”

She gazed down at the little book in her hands. Without a word, she wrapped it in a piece of plastic and slid it back into her pocket. “You should try to get some sleep, we have a long way to go tomorrow.”

* * *

He’d slept eventually for a few hours then kept watch while Veya slept. For her part, she’d knocked right off and slept soundly through all of the strange forest noises. But they were up and off again at the crack of dawn.

They trudged through the forest an into an area where the Cardassians had been systematically clearcutting the trees away. Vast stretches of bare hillsides were visible where not a tree had been left behind or a single plant untrampled. The two of them had to zigzag around the bare zones to keep under cover of the trees.

The sounds of ground-based vehicles echoed through the hills without trees to dampen the sound. Eventually they reached the source of the sound, a high capacity roadway.

Larn stared up at it from a cluster of the few trees that remained. The roadway sat on top of a high mound, built up by the Cardassians to make the roadway level through the hilly landscape. The sides of the mound were covered in loose gravel, not something that would be easy to climb.

Veya glanced at a padd with the map they’d been following. “We definitely need to get to the other side, but there’s basically zero chance of us crossing without getting caught.”

They both began searching along the bottom of the artificial mound without needing to specify what they were looking for. The rain in Joalla was legendary, and one thing was for certain, a barrier like that could not exist here without plenty of drainage.

“Over here.” Veya said, parting a clump of tall grass away from the opening of a runoff pipe. She dropped down onto her knees in the muck that had collected there and bent down to look inside. “It’s a long way across, but it’s clear.”

He eyed the opening, it would be a tight fit for him, but she didn’t wait for his agreement. She pushed her rifle back to balance between her shoulder blades and climbed inside.

As soon as her feet had disappeared, he bent down to follow. The putrid smell of the green-brown sludge that coated the bottom of the corrugated drain pipe made him gag. He turned away to take one more breath of clean air, then got down into the slime and squeezed his shoulders inside.

As long as his legs were still hanging out of the pipe, he could push against the ground but as he got farther in, he could only use his fingertips and the toes of his shoes to propel himself forward. Progress was slow and he tried to ignore the thought of a sudden flash flood. There was no way they’d be out of there fast enough. As children, they’d all be sternly warned never to go into these things.

He pressed on, sliding himself a centimeter at a time while trying to keep at least his face out of the filth.

Finally, he looked ahead to find that Veya had reached the end and she tumbled gracefully out. He still had a ways to go. He could see that she had knelt down next to the opening with her phaser relaxed but ready.

Finally, he reached forward and wrapped his sore finger tips around the sharp edge of the opening. With the new leverage, he was able to pull himself forward much faster. As soon as his shoulders were free, the rest of him pitched forward and tumbled out.

“You know, we have to go back this way, too.” She pointed out. Her entire front was smeared with that muck, as he was sure his was. What looked like it had once been a white tank top, already stained and dirty when he’d first seen her, was now covered with a layer of the thick, foul smelling goo.

She wiped a bit of it off of her chin and started off into the woods again.

He’d been hoping for fresh air once he got out of that pipe, but the smell followed them and didn’t diminish at all as it started to dry on their clothes.

Veya stopped suddenly, “Do you hear that?”

He froze, not picking up on whatever she was hearing.

“There’s water nearby.” She said and headed presumably in the direction she’d heard it.

Sure enough, soon he began to hear the sound of gently flowing water. A few minutes later, they pushed through into the bank of a creek.

She slipped the phaser rifle off of her shoulder and handed it to him by the strap. “Hold this.” She quickly waded into the water. The middle was less than hip deep on her, so she lowered her front down in, gasping at what was probably cold water touching her skin. She shook and swirled the fabric around to rinse it, then splashed the water onto her exposed skin and rubbed away the muck.

When she stood back up, the fabric clung to the curves of her body. He quickly looked away, but he could still see out of the corner of his eye that she gathered up the fabric to wring out the water and shook it to billow it out.

He handed her weapon back to her while trying to avert his eyes from clinging fabric. While she laughed at his unease, he handed her his phaser and stepped into the water.

He wouldn’t have braved the icy meltwater except that the smell of the muck all over him was much worse. After wading out into the middle, he found that he had to kneel down to get far enough into the water to do him any good. The frigid water needled his skin, but he managed to rinse out his clothes and clean off his skin. He rejoined her on the bank as quickly as possible to continue their trek.

* * *

Another day of hiking, another break for the night, another tiny campfire. They expected to cross the border into Dakur the following day where they were told a pair of rebels would be waiting to take them the rest of the way.

By now, the landscape had already shifted from the lush, overgrown greenery of the Hill Provinces where Joralla was located to the dry, arid climate that dominated Dakur. It felt strange to be out of the protection of the trees, but this region had the advantage of having far more caves in the hills.

Veya sat with her back against the wall of the cave writing in her book again. It didn’t look like she was actively writing, more like editing. He watched her for a while. Her entire face changed when she was working on her poetry. Like all of the burdens a resistance fighter had to constantly carry were unloaded into that little book, at least for a time.

“You must enjoy that a lot.”

“It helps me get by.” She said softly.

“Could I read it?”

She thought silently for a long enough time that he was about to retract the request when she closed the book and handed it to him.

He took it from her and turned it over in his hands before opening it. The hand-bound cover was unadorned and worn around the edges. Covered in smudges of mud and who knew what else. The pages were torn, bent and crumpled. Water stained, too, which he guessed was why she now wrapped it in plastic.

He began to open it and found that there was one page that seemed to be pressed open more than the others, so he turned to it. The handwritten characters were neat and precise, just as those from the writers’ D’jarra were trained. Lines were crossed out and rewritten or covered in edit notations. The last stanzas jumped out at him.

 _So leave me brother, I’ve failed you now.  
I’m bent and broken, Our heroes die._

_Enslaved by hatred, Too far to turn.  
I'm soaked in blood now, I can't get out._

He went back and read it from the beginning and found that he had to read it a second time, then a third.

Finally, Veya broke in. “I’m sure you can tell, I’m still working on it.”

“It’s…” he searched for the right word. Clearly, she had a greater command of language than he did. “It’s very moving. I liked it.”

She let out a relieved breath and smiled. “Really? It’s not exactly mainstream classical style.”

“I’m sure by the time this is all over, an entirely new facet of our culture will have emerged.”

“I was afraid it was too harsh and clumsy.”

“Not at all. You should get it published.”

She let out a small snort, “Oh, I don’t know about that. And even if I thought anyone would want to read it, the Cardassians would never allow it to be distributed.”

“When they’re gone, then.”

She smiled at him, shaking her head gently, “I’ve never met anyone as optimistic as you.”

He smiled back, but only wistfully, “Must have been my sister’s influence. She was certain that if we could just stay together and hang on a while longer, we’d make it through.”

She nodded. “I only knew her a little bit, but that does sound like her. You must miss her.”

“I just keep thinking that the last time we were together, we were fighting about her joining the Resistance. Our mother had Ejea syndrome. Dementia set in months ago. Jassi and I only had each other left. I couldn’t imagine life without her. And now that’s exactly where I am.”

She reached across to take hold of his wrist and give it a squeeze without a word.

He flipped the book open again, hoping to lose himself in its pages.

* * *

They approached the province border carefully. There was one particular place where the cameras and sensors were rigged so that they could cross. Even at a distance, Larn could see the two tall fences with a wide patch of empty space between.

Someone had once told him that before the Cardassians came, the province borders were wide open. No barriers of any kind, just the occasional white boundary marker. Farms and other properties would straddle the borders and people routinely passed back and forth between them.

It was hard to imagine such freedom.

Veya showed him a mark on a tree, “Straight to the fence from here is where we can go in. Then we need to get across as fast as possible to the other side, exactly perpendicular to the fence.”

As they approached the fence, he watched for patrols flying overhead like she’d shown him. When they didn’t see any, she pulled back a loose piece of fence. They climbed through and immediately broke into a run, staying as straight as possible.

Even though his legs were longer and he wasn’t burdened with a heavy phaser rifle, he still had a hard time keeping up. His legs were burning by the time they skidded to a stop on the other side. Veya ran her fingers along the fence material to find the opening and they slipped through.

He wanted to rest, but she kept him going a little further away from the fence before slowing down to a fast walk. Their contact should be around here somew—

He didn’t even finish the thought when two young men around his and Veya’s age stepped out in front of them with their phasers ready but not pointed at them.

“Have you ever taken a trip to Jo’Kala?” One of them said the code phrase with the distinct drawl of a Dakur farmer.

“Of course. Their kava roots are enormous.” Veya said evenly.

Their two counterparts relaxed noticeably and the first one spoke again, “Now that that’s out of the way, I’m Shakaar, this is Jallic.”

“Veya and Ren.”

He suddenly realized that he didn’t know whether Veya was her family name or her given name. 

“You have the isolinear rod?” Jallic asked.

Veya let out a frustrated noise and back-hand slapped Larn’s shoulder. “I knew I forgot something! We’d better go back.” She said overdramatically.

Shakaar laughed first, nudging Jallic with his fist before he, too, began laughing. “Well, Veya and Ren, there’s a place about a kellipate from here where we can stop and go over our plans.” He said, flashing her an impish smile.

Veya responded with a sly smile of her own that turned downright lecherous when he turned away. When the two had moved far enough away, she whispered to Larn, “Wow! He’s sexy.”

“It’s just the accent.”

“And the eyes, and the smile, and I bet he has a-”

“I get it.” He cut her off.

She bit her lip as she watched him from behind.

* * *

They followed the two Darku natives to an abandoned farm. The farmhouse had long since collapsed, but the barn was only about half way there.

It was there that they’d discussed their plan. Jallic had drawn a crude map for them on Veya’s padd and indicated the _hot zones_ , as they called them. Areas with a lot of Cardassian activity. There were also stretches of sensor towers, mobile patrols and base camps to avoid. He wondered if Cardassian presence here was greater, or if Veya just knew Joralla so well that they hadn’t run into any trouble. Except at that diner, at least.

The cell they were to meet with was on the other side of a number of these obstacles. It seemed like it would take an act of the Prophets to get through it all. Or maybe just three experienced rebels guided by Them.

After planning out their rout for the following day, Shakaar pulled out four ration packs and handed them out, taking a seat on the floor of the barn noticeably close to Veya.

She pulled at the corner of the pack to rip it open, but instead, it only tore off the corner. She turned it over to try the other side, which did the same thing and she let out a frustrated noise.

“Here.” Shakaar said as he pulled out a switchblade. He placed his hand over hers to steady the packet and sliced it open.

“Thanks.” She said with a sidelong smile.

Larn turned his focus to his own packet while the two flirted. When Jallic plunked down beside him, he asked, “Does this happen a lot?”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, “All the time, man. You have no idea.”

He consumed his meal sullenly, trying to ignore the playful laughing nearby.

Suddenly ending all conversation, an alarm beeped urgently on one of the devices they’d set down when they came in. With barely a split second’s hesitation, the other three leaped to their feet and began hurriedly gathering their equipment.

“What is it?” He asked.

“It’s a passive sensor sweep alert.” Veya told him as she slid her padd into her pocket. “There’s a patrol approaching.”

They followed the other two to the back of the barn into the shadows.

“I thought our biosigns were masked.” He whispered.

“They are. But a direct scan could still pick us up. And we don’t want to give them any reason to do that.” She told him as they hid themselves in the shadows. “There’s a back door to this place, right?” She asked the others.

“There’s a small access door where they used to load firewood for the old wood-burning stove in the back.” Shakaar said. “As long as you don’t mind some soot and spiders.”

Veya clamped down on her response at the sound of foot soldiers near the front of the barn.

“They’re on foot!” Jallic whispered almost too quietly to hear.

“Is that bad?” Larn asked at the same volume.

“They don’t generally go in on foot unless they expect to find somebody.” Shakaar whispered.

“That access door is sounding pretty good right about now.” Veya said, watching the Cardassians begin scanning the area.

“Yeah.” Shakaar moved away to lead them to the exit.

Larn moved as carefully as he could in the dark, terrified about doing anything to put the others’ lives in danger.

The stove was far in the back where it was so dark that they had to feel their way around. He heard Veya’s fingers brush along the rough metal stove, and soon his fingertips found it as well.

“Right here.” Shakaar said softly.

There was the faintest click as they opened the access door. He wasn’t sure at first who had gone in first, until he heard a faintly feminine breach echo within the chute. Then someone tugged at his elbow.

“You’re next.” Jallic whispered.

Larn felt the edges of the small opening and climbed in. inside, he found that the floor was a small square with a shaft straight up. Making sure the lower door was closed so that the light from outside didn’t draw attention, he slid the upper door open. Bright evening light pierced his eyes, blinding him for a moment, and he hoisted himself up and out where Veya was waiting.

As soon as the other two joined them, they started off toward the overgrown and abandoned crops, moving from cover to cover in case of air surveillance. Once they reached the tall, weed-bound _ali_ wheat, they broke into a run, following what remained of the crop rows.

The ears of wheat whispered softly as they slipped past them.

Just when he thought they’d made it, a beam of energy slammed down into the ground in front of them, forcing them to halt to avoid the scorched and smoldering wheat stalks. But as more blasts hit the ground around them, they continued running in another direction, zigzagging and dodging the burning sections of crop set ablaze by the bombardment.

By the time they reached the far end of the farm that backed up against the hills, the smoke was so thick that they could barely see each other. After taking a moment to get his bearings Jallic pointed to a path between the hills and ran in that direction with the others on his heels.

Only a moment after they’d reached the hills, he disappeared. It wasn’t until Larn got closer that he saw the entrance to a cave and followed him inside.

Within the narrow passage, they barely slowed their pace as they wound back and forth. “Stay close, you don’t want to get lost in here.” Jallic said.

At least here they could use flashlights to see where they were going.

Soon, the passage narrowed so that they had to turn sideways and shuffle along.

“How did they know we were there?” Jallic wondered. All three of them checked their bio-masking devices to be sure they weren’t malfunctioning.

Larn checked his as well, but they all appeared to be functioning. “Could they have been tracking us since we crossed the border?” He asked.

“It’s possible, but I can’t imagine why they’d wait until now to attack.” Veya said.

The passage narrowed even more, enough that he began to worry he’d get stuck.

“Could be the border crossing point has been compromised.” Shakaar said with a grunt as he squeezed into the narrow place last.

“Or, they just got lucky.” Veya said with shallow breaths.

Finally, Jallic lurched through into an open space, followed by Larn. As soon as he was through, he gasped to fill his lungs. While he stood there with his hands on his knees, the last of their group, Veya, then Shakaar pushed through, similarly breathing hard.

Larn looked back the way they’d come, it was barely more than a crack in the rocks. Even if the Cardassians could follow their trail through this maze, there was no way they’d make it through there with their armor.

The ground suddenly shook and dust rained down on their heads as a deep rumble echoed through the caves. It didn’t take an experienced resistance fighter to know that was weapons fire. A few seconds later there was another one from a different direction.

“They must know what we have.” Veya said somberly and the others nodded their agreement with an air of dread around them. “We’ve got eleven people from our group who know, besides us.” She continued.

But, they’d left them only two days ago. What could have happened?

“We have seven people who know.” Jallic offered.

“Could be any one of them.” Veya said. The cave shook hard to punctuate her statement.

“Does that really matter right now?” Larn asked.

“Yes. I don’t want to walk right into a trap.”

“A trap is unlikely.” Shakaar said, “Otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to stop us. We should continue.”

“I agree.” Jallic said.

Veya nodded, “You’re probably right.”

With that the two Dakur natives began to move away down one of the tunnels leading off of the space they were in.

“Is there any way for them to pinpoint our location in here?” Veya asked as she followed.

“No. They’re firing blind.” Jallic called from up ahead.

Just as he said it, a blast hit close by and shook the ground hard enough to knock them to their knees. Veya stumbled backwards into Larn, by pure luck, landing perfectly in his arms as though he’d planned it.

“Thanks.” She said with a sweet smile as she got back up.

They continued down the passage as the bombardment increased in intensity so much that they had to reach their hands out to either side of the cave just to stay on their feet.

“There’s got to be more than one ship up there.” Veya said.

A tumble of pebbles slid down between her and Shakaar, forcing her to step back.

Shakaar peered into the place where the slide had come from. “There’s more up there. Be careful.” He said, reaching across to usher them through.

Just as Veya was about to step across, a deafening sound roared through the tunnels and the ground shook harder than he could have thought possible. The rest of the slide broke through and a tumble of rocks, sand and pebbles poured down, filling the pathway.

Veya leapt back, colliding with Larn once again, but this time they both fell backward onto the cave floor. Adding to the chaos, their flashlights fell from their grasp and skittered and rolled away, casting flashes of light and shadows randomly around the space.

When the debris had settled and only small pebbles continued to roll down, they sat in a silent cloud of dust with the Cardassian weapons still sounding in the distance.

At first, all he could do was cough, finally he managed to croak, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She said between coughs as the picked herself up and grabbed her flashlight. She sharply muttered what his mother would have called a ‘top-level curse’, shining the flashlight on her left forearm, which was covered in streaks of blood.

Grabbing their attention away, lights shined through the spaces between the jumble of rocks.

 _“Hey, are you two okay?”_ One of them said from the other side, but it was so muffled, he couldn’t tell who it was.

“Yeah, she has a cut on her arm, but nothing serious, I think.” He glanced at Veya, who had propped her flashlight against her neck with her right shoulder and was applying pressure to the wound. “You?” He asked them.

_“We’re alright.”_

“Can we dig through this?”

_“No. there could be ten times as much of this stuff waiting to come down if we dislodge any of it.”_

“Is there a way around, then?” Veya asked.

_“There is, but you’ll never find your way yourselves. We’ll have to come and get you.”_

“How long will that take?”

There was a pause on the other side that stretched on for a long moment. _“Several hours.”_

“‘Several hours’?!” She repeated.

_“At least. Maybe longer if there are more cave-ins.”_

“Doesn’t seem like we have any other choice.” Larn said to her.

“Alright, I guess we’ll see you in several hours.”

He shined his light onto her arm, it didn’t seem like it was bleeding freely anymore. “We should take a look at that.” He said, looking for a place to sit down. He found a spot against the wall of the cave and kicked some loose gravel out of the way.

When they had sat down, he shined the light on her arm again and she carefully peeled her thumb away, revealing a small, deep cut that tapered away into nothing. A small amount of blood continued to seep out, but at least it didn’t look like there was debris in the wound.

She pressed her thumb against it again, “There’s a strip of cloth in my back pocket we can use as a bandage.” She said, leaning forward to give him access.

He reached carefully into her pocket, trying to ignore the gap between her pants and her hips. Right next to her plastic-wrapped book, he found the neatly folded fabric and slid it out.

She helped hold it in place while he wrapped it around her arm. As he worked, he felt her soft breath on the side of his neck and swallowed hard, trying to stay focused to get the pressure right.

When he had it mostly wrapped, she walked him through tying it off securely, then sat back against the cave wall while she continued to apply direct pressure on top of the bandage.

He followed her gaze to the pile of rocks blocking their path, the up-lighting seemed to make it all the more ominous. “Do you really think someone sold us out?” He asked, listening to the weapons fire that had moved even farther away.

“It’s possible. Or someone was captured and tortured. Or they’ve found a way to tap into our transmissions.”

“None of those are good options.”

“No. They’re not.” She said with a heavy sigh.

He let that hang in the air. There was nothing more to say. Nothing else to do but wait for the other to come for them and continue their mission. That is, if Shakaar and Jallic could make it. They had no idea if other tunnels were blocked. They could be completely cut off. Or worse, if there was another cave-in they could get trapped too or killed and he and Veya would never know it.

If the others didn’t make it within a reasonable amount of time, they could try to backtrack out of here, but the Cardassians would be waiting for them. He couldn’t think of any way out of this.

Veya flexed the fingers of her injured arm.

“Is it okay?”

“Yeah, just making sure there’s no tendon or nerve damage.”

He reached for her hand and ran his thumb along her palm in several places, then along each finger. “Does that feel right?”

“Yes.” She said breathily.

He forgot to let go of her hand as he froze in place with his heart pounding. Her face was so close to his.

She turned a fraction of a degree towards him and gazed up into his eyes.

Seconds felt like minutes as he held his breath.

Finally, he forced himself to move. He leaned almost imperceptibly forward.

She tipped her chin up at his movement and closed her eyes.

He felt his eyes close automatically a split second before their lips touched. She felt warm and soft. He could have stayed like that forever, but he came to his senses and pulled back. “I’m sorry. I-”

She reached up to grab the back of his neck and surged forward to press her lips hard against his. So hard that she pushed him back against the cave wall. He slid his hands around her waist as she dug her fingers into his hair.

* * *

Larn watched Veya scribble madly in her notebook, pouring over something that seemed to have been inspired by their time together.

“I can’t do this with you watching me.” She said playfully.

“Sorry. I can’t help it. You’re beautiful when you’re writing.”

She made a face at him in an attempt to prove him wrong.

“Sorry, still beautiful.”

She smiled shyly and pushed up onto her knees so she could reach across to where he was sitting. She took hold of the front of his shirt and pulled him close for a kiss. A kiss that was just as thrilling as the first one.

When their lips parted, she pressed her forehead against his affectionately before sitting back down.

“So, if I can’t look at you, what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. You have a flashlight. Make shadow puppets.”

“Ah, the Resistance, skilled shadow puppet artists.”

Her sudden giggles echoed against the cave walls until she managed to stifle it.

He hoped he could make her do that a lot more often.

The realization hit him that he’d decided to join the Resistance without really intending to. This woman who he hadn’t even known three days ago had changed the course of his life.

Whether it was for the better remained to be seen, but for now, just being with her was enough.

When she pointed an obscene hand gesture at him, he realized he’d been watching her again.

Before he could apologize, she leapt to her feet, reacting to sounds of footsteps echoing through the caves. Her weapon was instantly up and ready. He’d have to have her teach him that.

He reached for his weapon as well.

Before they could see who was approaching, Veya’s shoulders relaxed and she lowered her phaser. As he listened to the sound, he realized why. The footsteps were light, slow and relaxed, not what a heavy-booted Cardassian soldier would make.

Soon, Jallic and Shakaar appeared around the corner.

“Anybody need a way out of here?” Shakaar asked good-naturedly. Larn wondered how he’d react when he found out Veya had chosen him instead.

* * *

They made their way through the caves without stopping for the night. With all the time they’d lost and the Cardassian air strikes still passing over them every few hours, they had to press on and get the information delivered as fast as possible.

Night had come and gone. According to the chronometer on Veya’s padd, anyway. There was no way to tell from in here where in the sky the sun was.

It had to be well into midday by the time he began to see light up ahead.

His eyes had become so accustomed to the dark that he had to block the light with his hand as they approached with weapons raised in case there were Cardassians waiting for them.

The cave opened up to a grove of shaggy _suka_ trees, planted in neat rows, each with a monitoring device attached to its trunk. This was a working orchard, he realized.

There didn’t appear to be any Cardassians, so they hurried out of the cave, skirting the edge of the property, but keeping to the cover of the trees.

Well before they reached the farmhouse on the far side of the orchard, their guides split off and back into the uncultivated hills. They followed them up the crusty, sunbaked hillside.

“Just over this hill will be a valley and on the other side of that is where the rest of our cell should be.” Shakaar told them. He seemed to have taken it in stride when Veya suddenly lost interest in him. Already looking forward to the next one, no doubt.

“‘Should’?” Larn asked.

“If the Cardassians haven’t forced them into hiding.” He explained. “We’ll be able to follow this ridgeline most of the way around.”

Larn was having an increasingly hard time keeping up at this point. Not just the days and days of walking and climbing, but the lack of sleep. Now, trying to get up this hill that kept trying to slip out from under him, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

The others were several paces ahead of him by the time they reached the crest of the hill. Almost in unison, the three of the dropped down below the top of the hill. Larn stayed low as he caught up. “What’s wrong?” He asked.

“See for yourself.” Jallic said.

Larn peeked up over the dirt and rocks to see a Cardassian encampment down in the valley. Several things crossed his mind then. Did that mean the cell had been forced into hiding or driven away? If so, how were they to find them? But first, could they make it around the perimeter of the valley without being seen? He hoped the others had answers because he certainly didn’t.

“Option one: we attack with a full-on assault and get through to our people.” Jallic said.

Veya and Larn stared at him open-mouthed while Shakaar only shook his head.

“He always suggests that first to make the other options seem more sane.”

“Option two,” Jallic continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “we can go back down the way we came and make our way through those orchards. But we know for a fact that there are trip sensors everywhere down there.”

“Is there a third option?” Larn asked.

“We stay on the ridge and try to sneak by.”

“We’d be completely exposed if a patrol flew over.” Veya argued.

“I’d rather take that chance than try our luck with those trip sensors.” Shakaar said.

“We’ve got, what, another hour or two until dusk? Is there somewhere we can hide out until then?” Veya asked.

“Yeah, I know a place.” Shakaar said.

Larn followed with relief, he could really use a couple of hours of rest.

* * *

He’d hoped to feel better after a few hours of rest, but as it turned out, it had only caused his overworked muscles to stiffen up. He didn’t dare let the others know, though. They all seemed perfectly fine.

He wished he could have more time alone with Veya. After this is over, he told himself, they’d have the entire walk back home. For her part, she was all business now, except for the occasional sly smile cast his way.

His legs ached as they moved quickly over the uneven ground, bent down to be sure their heads stayed below the ridge. It had just barely become dusk when they’d set out again, but now it was almost fully dark. The lights from the Cardassian encampment glowed over the edge of the hill as they slipped by, making almost no sound.

He was fairly sure they were getting close to the end of this line of hills that bordered the valley and would soon have to slink across to the next. A sudden beeping stopped them in their tracks. He searched the darkness for the source.

“It’s a trip sensor.” Veya said urgently.

“Get moving!” Shakaar said, leading them away quickly into the darkness up ahead.

Within moments, he could hear Cardassians on the other side of the hill. By now, all four of his group were running at a full sprint. Without being able to see the ground under their feet, there was the worry of tripping on a loose rock or in a hole. Not that a twisted ankle or scraped knee was any concern, the danger lied in being stalled enough to allow the Cardassians to catch up.

Although, they didn’t even need to catch them, all they needed was to spot them clearly enough to shoot at them. A fact that was immediately confirmed when a phaser blast sliced through the darkness.

Larn turned in unison with the others and returned fire rapidly, lighting up the landscape with staccato flashes of light. Before the light faded, he caught sight of where Shakaar had been headed. A large piece of rock jutted out from the loose gravel of the hillside. He heard more than saw the others take off again for the cover of the rock as return fire pounded the ground where they had been.

Veya turned around, somehow running backwards downhill, firing behind them before diving behind the rock with them. She stayed at the edge while Jallic moved around to the other side where he could fire back, too.

“Now what?” Larn asked Shakaar.

“We’re pinned down. There’s no cover between here and the other line of hills. We’d have no chance down in the farmland and we can’t go back the way we came.”

“That’s it? We’re out of options?”

“I didn’t say that. But right now, I don’t know what those options are.”

“Other than attacking with a full-on assault?” He only partly joked.

Shakaar chuckled in the darkness, “Jallic would finally have his chance.”

Veya pulled back from her position, looking at the display on her rifle. “My power cell’s down to five percent.”

Not surprising. He was fairly certain it hadn’t been changed out since that first firefight in the village. The two of them changed places and Larn peered around the edge of the rock. Silhouettes of at least a dozen Cardassians advanced toward their hiding place. He lifted his phaser and began firing at them, adding his weapon fire to Jallic’s.

It wasn’t clear how many of them he’d hit and how many had ducked out of sight, but there always seemed to be more of them coming than he could shoot at. As the certainty deepened that they weren’t going to be able to hold them off, phaser fire lashed out toward the Cardassians from up ahead in the direction they’d been heading. He could faintly hear voices shouting… Bajoran voices.

It had to be Shakaar and Jallic’s cell. Their response time was good, they must have been holed up nearby.

“Hold your fire.” Shakaar said to Veya and Larn, barely audible over the sound of the weapons. “They’ll draw their fire while we get across the ravine to the other hills.” With that, they prepared to leave their cover behind.

With volleys of energy blasts exchanged over their heads, the four of them slunk quickly down and across the empty space between the hills. As they climbed back up the other hill where the rebels were, Larn looked up at the bright streaks of light that lit up the sky and wondered what the people who lived down in the farmland were feeling.

The group skidded to a halt behind a ridge where he could see several other people stop firing and duck back down to safety.

“Peltr!” Shakaar called to one of them. “Power cell.”

Peltr immediately pulled a power cell off of his belt and tossed it to him who then tossed it to Veya.

With a quick movement, she changed it out and climbed up to the crest of the hill to begin firing again. He caught a glimpse of her face. The phaser fire reflected in her eyes like some kind of bizarre light show.

A pair of bright points of light caught his eye as they sailed through the air toward the Cardassians. The grenades exploded just before they hit the ground, echoing through the hills and washing the rebels over with a wave of heat.

An older woman hurried over to him. “Which one of you has the intel?” She said breathlessly.

“Veya!” He called instead of answering directly.

She turned and scooted down the hill toward them.

“The rod?” The woman prompted.

Veya reached into her pocket and pulled out the isolinear rod without a word.

The woman wrapped her fingers around it protectively and slid it into her pocket before leaning over to Shakaar to tell him something that was lost in the noise of battle. Then she turned to Larn, “The Cardassians are moving to retreat. You should stick with us until this is over.”

“Got it.” He said.

“They’re on the move!” Someone called in the distance.

“Let’s go!” The woman called and began leading her people in pursuit.

As Veya made a move to follow, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. They turned together toward the source with phasers drawn to find a Cardassian standing at the bottom of the hill with his phaser already prepared.

Larn began discharging his phaser before he’d aimed, and swept it toward the target to join Veya’s perfectly accurate shot, but not before the Cardassian fired back.

At the same instant, the Cardassian’s body dropped and Veya stumbled backward.

Larn rushed to her, the battle nearly forgotten. He knelt over her as blood soaked through her shirt from a burned place in the middle. “Veya!” He called urgently, but she barely responded, her face had already grown terribly pale.

She reached up to weakly grasp the side of his neck as he slid his hands under her shoulders and gently lifted her up. Her eyes finally focused on his face.

“Veya.” He repeated, choking on her name.

Her lips moved as though she was trying to say something, but no sound came out.

After only a few precious last moments, her eyes dimmed, her hand dropped and her head lolled back.

“No!” He cried, holding her body against his chest. “No, no.” He whispered into the crook of her neck. The front of his shirt felt wet as her blood soaked into it. He grasped her desperately, unwilling to accept that she was already gone.

Reluctantly, he lowered her back to the ground, but he stayed there, bent over her with the sounds of battle beginning to move away. His tears fell onto her face and ran down her cheeks as though she were crying with him.

* * *

_\- Twenty-three years later -_

Ren eagerly dug through the crates in the Property Reclamation Service’s warehouse. He’d been contacted a few weeks ago by the organization when one of their former weapon stashes from his Resistance days had been uncovered. Based on the location they’d found them in, he was certain somewhere in one of these crates was an item he’d long since thought was lost.

Finally, tossed in among a random assortment of dead power cells, padds with cracked screens and other supplies, there it was. A small, hand-bound notebook with worn edges and smudges of mud all over it. His throat tightened at the site.

The cell that would later bear the First Minister’s name helped him bury her and he’d stayed with them for a few days before he returned to join the cell that would later bear his name. He’d taken the book with him, intending to deliver it to her family or someone close to her. But there was no one. Mazan had told him that if she’d let him read it, he should be the one to keep it.

He thought for a moment about all of those people he’d fought beside so many years ago. His cell had gone through many stages where the older fighters died out to be replaced by others. No one from those days was still alive by the time, say, Kee had joined. So many lost with no family or friends outside the Resistance. No one to remember them or their sacrifices but him.

He stood with only the book in his hands. “The rest of it is junk.” He told the clerk and walked away.

* * *

Cadda slipped into the seat across the table from Ren with a cocky flair that only she could pull off. She’d already changed her hair since just a couple of days ago when he asked her to meet him here. It was now jet black at the top, fading into hunter green ends.

“Hey, what’s up?” She greeted him.

“I thought you’d enjoy reading this.” He said, sliding the little book over to her. It had taken several days before he could even bring himself to open it up. Then, after that, he hadn’t been able to put it down. Reading and rereading the lines that he’d memorized so long ago. Savoring her elegant handwriting. The notes and corrections. Everything.

She took it from him and flipped it open to a random page. He watched her eyes move across the rows then back to the top of the page to read again. She turned to another page, then another and another, drinking in the compositions.

“Where did you get this?” She asked, finally.

“Her name was Veya. You could say she was my first partner when I joined the Resistance.”

She glanced back at the book, understanding that she had to have died long ago. “I’d love to put this to music.” She said earnestly.

He smiled, that’s what he was hoping for. “I think Veya would have liked that.”

“Tell me about her.” She said with excitement in her eyes.

“She was…” He searched for words, but nothing could quite describe her. “… a lot like you, but with less of a ‘ _tus_ you’ attitude.”

A smile spread across her face, “I like her already.” She said in her smooth alto voice.

“She was the only woman I’ve ever loved…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, my husband called me a "jerk" for that ending.


	3. Joial

Rahnah cracked open the lid of the kiln that sat in the corner of her kitchen to allow the pieces inside to continue their slow cooldown. She seated herself back down at the table and picked up the pencil to continue sketching out ideas for pottery she’d probably never make. Not because she was incapable of making it, but because the Bajorans in the village couldn’t afford such luxury items and the Cardassiand didn’t care for them. The only pottery she could ever sell were practical pieces like cups and bowls. Things with thick, chunky rims that didn’t chip easily.

She sighed and glanced around the one-room house that was attached to the back of her shop. It had been almost a year since her sister had been taken away to the Azahl labor camp. At this point, there was virtually no chance she’d still be alive. Long before that there had also been her mother and father. The home that had once been so busy and cramped now felt empty and hollow. The memories haunted every bit of the space, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave.

She’d just returned to her sketch when a noise out back made her jump. Her heart pounded in her chest. It was long past curfew, there shouldn’t be anyone out there. She slowly set the pencil down as she stood up. It rolled off the table and hit the floor with a clink. She grabbed one of the tools off of the side of the kiln and peered through the window into the darkness.

When she could see nothing, she moved to the back door and cracked it open. She peeked through the narrow opening, widening it to be able to see more of the stoop. She stopped when she saw someone’s foot and waited without breathing. When the person didn’t move, she opened the door wider to reveal a Bajoran man reclined against the railing. He still didn’t move, so she looked closer. He was breathing, so he was at least alive, but by the looks of it, just barely. His clothes were covered in blood and he had a phaser rifle slung across his back.

Rahnah recoiled momentarily, she could get in a lot of trouble if the Cardassians found a member of the resistance here, but she couldn’t tear herself away. She crept out onto the stoop, peering out into the darkness in all directions.

Nothing.

She reached out to touch his shoulder and he groaned and turned, revealing the source of the blood, a phaser wound on the side of his stomach.

“Prophets!” She whispered and bent down to lift him up.

He groaned again as she hooked his arm over her shoulder and hoisted him to his feet. He stumbled, leaning heavily on her while she guided him inside and over to her sister’s bed that had sat empty all this time. His weapon clattered to the floor as she laid him down.

Now what? She wondered. She’d crossed a line, she’d taken in a wounded rebel, but she wasn’t even sure what to do to help him. She looked around for a stack of gauze pads she kept on hand for when she frequently burned herself on the kiln. She pressed a bundle of gauze against the wound, but the blood quickly soaked through.

Rahnah jumped at a heavy pounding at the door of the shop. The man’s eyes fluttered open a tiny bit at the sound.

“I’ll be right back.” She told him, and went anxiously to the door that led to the back of the shop, then walked along the shelves full of pottery toward the front.

Her heart sank when she could see broad, grey silhouettes in the window of the door. Cardassians. With a lump in her stomach, she opened the door.

“We have reason to believe there is a dangerous felon in the area.” The Cardassian began, stepping presumptuously into her shop.

She only lowered her eyes in submission and stepped out of his way.

“Have you seen or heard anything unusual?”

“No.” She said softly.

Three more soldiers entered behind him. One of them passed a scanner back and forth. Rahnah thought for sure they’d detect his lifesigns, but he didn’t respond. The other two mockingly browsed her shop, picking up pieces of pottery and dropping them to shatter noisily on the floor.

“Do you live here alone?” The first one asked.

“Y-yes.” She tried desperately to keep the shaking out of her voice.

More smashed pottery behind her.

“And you’re alone now?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t mind if we take a look?” He said as though she had a choice, then marched through the door to her home.

She waited, but he didn’t immediately raise any alarm. The other three followed him, then Rahnah hesitantly trailed behind, finding the room empty. No trace of the man except for disheveled blankets.

The four Cardassians paced the room, poking and prodding her belongings. She saw that the man’s phaser stuck out from under the bed where it had fallen. She made her way over to it and slid it the rest of the way under with her toe.

The Cardassian who had spoken before noticed the stack of gauze with a smudge of blood on top.

“I burned my arm.” She explained and showed him the bandage on her forearm from the last time she’d done it. “On the kiln.” She added, pointing at it.

He sneered with disdain and started toward the door. “I don’t have to tell you the punishment for harboring a fugitive.”

“No.” She said honestly.

“If you live alone, why is there a second bed?”

“It belonged to my sister, but she’s gone.” She noticed a drop of blood on the floor near the back door and moved to cover it with her foot.

With that he walked back into her shop with the other three close behind. She listened to their footsteps as their boots crunched through the pottery shards. Just before they reached the front door, she heard one more pot shatter on the floor, followed by the door opening and slamming shut.

When she was sure they were gone, she said quietly, “You’re still here, right?”

The only response was a shuffling sound from the closet. She rushed over to him, barely catching him before he collapsed. She struggled under his weight, but managed to make it far enough for a soft landing back on the bed.

Once he was settled, she carefully peeled the remains of his shirt away from the wound and pressed a new handful of gauze against it. Just as before, blood soaked through immediately. It was bleeding too fast, she had to stop it somehow, but pressure wasn’t working. She stood back and thought for a moment, looking desperately around the room.

Her eyes fell on the kiln and the metal tools hanging from the side. Her stomach turned, she couldn’t do that. No way. Then she turned back to the bleeding man. There was no other choice.

She reluctantly went over to the kiln and picked up a long-handled pate blade and shoved it down inside, right next to the flame nozzle. Without adding a cone to reduce the flow, she fired up the kiln and cranked it to the highest setting. Flames shot into the interior, scorching the pottery that was still inside. After thirty seconds or so, she turned it back off and grabbed the handle of the pate blade with a hot pad.

She brought it over to the man, saying, “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt.”

In his semi-conscious state, he nodded weakly.

Rahnah bit her lip and held her breath as she lowered it to the wound.

The moment the red-hot metal touched the wound, the man’s body tensed, his back arched and he held on to wads of the bedding while groaning through gritted teeth.

The smell reached her next and nearly made her vomit. She turned her head away to gasp a breath of fresh air.

Finally, she gently pulled the tool away and forced herself to look. By then, the man’s body had relaxed, his eyes were softly closed in unconsciousness. The wound was crusted over and no longer bleeding.

With the hot tool still in one hand, she reached out with the other to brush a bunch of hair away from his face. She’d been so panicked before, she hadn’t noticed how handsome he was with dark features, a strong jaw and perfectly even nasal ridges.

Finally, she tore herself away to put the pate blade back. While she was in that part of the room, she began filling a bowl with water and grabbed a clean piece of cloth. When the bowl was full, she took it over to his bedside.

Using a pair of scissors, she cut away his singed and bloody shirt and carefully wiped his body clean with the damp cloth, which only revealed other scratches and bruises. She gently ran the cloth across his face and down his neck. When she had him fully clean, she placed some fresh gauze over the wound and taped it in place.

When she was finished, she bundled up his shirt with the cleaning cloth, which would never come clean, and dropped them into the waste receptacle. With a quick look at her guest, she grabbed a broom and headed toward her shop to clean up the mess there.

* * *

It seemed like Rahnah’s eyes had barely closed when she heard insistent knocking at the door of her shop. Not the imposing pounding of Cardassians, but still demanding. Reluctantly, she pushed herself up away from her pillow as the knocking continued. “I’m coming.”

She peeked at the man in her sister’s bed, he hadn’t moved since last night, but the slow rise and fall of his bare chest showed that he was still alive.

Rahnah ambled out into the shop and opened the door to find one of her frequent customers, Nefek, standing outside with a worried expression. “Sorry, I overslept. Long night.” She explained.

“They came here too?” He said sympathetically as he began to meander through her shop. He had a large number of children that lived with him, most of them not his own, and he had to replace some dish or another almost every day. “They’re stopping and searching everybody in the streets. Don’t go out unless you have to.”

“I won’t.” She said and seated herself behind the purchase counter.

Her customer continued to browse, but Rahnah’s mind was already back on the man sleeping in the back room.

* * *

At the appropriate time for closing, Rahnah locked her shop door and went to check on the man as she’d done periodically throughout the day. He was still sleeping soundly, even through all of the noise of customers.

She began to worry about what would happen if he didn’t wake up soon. Surely he needed to drink water at the very least. She decided to worry about that tomorrow. After all, he could very well wake up tonight and she’d have nothing to worry about… as far as him being able to drink, anyway.

Satisfied that he was still unconscious, she went back into the shop and grabbed the few coins she’d earned that day and shoved them into her pocket. Then she headed out the door to see what food she could manage to buy from the store’s meager supply.

She’d traveled about half way there when a pair of Cardassians spotted her. She obediently stopped and waited for them to approach. Without even the courtesy of addressing her, one of them passed a scanner over her body.

As soon as he was done, his partner reached out to pat her down. She waited. She had nothing to hide. At least not on her person.

His hand grazed her pocket and the coins inside clinked together. He immediately reached inside and pulled them out, tossing them around in his hand to see that they were ordinary coins. Once he was satisfied, he held them out as though to give them back to her, but dropped them on the gravel road just as she was reaching for them.

She stood still with her money on the ground until they moved away, chuckling cruelly.

Once they were several paces away, she bent down and picked up the coins, taking care to pick up every one.

* * *

Rahnah had managed to find one cruet of soup at the store. The same pair of Cardassians had stopped and searched her on the way back, but she got through without any trouble. She’d learned at a young age how to endure Cardassian harassment.

While she heated up the entire container of soup, which was only a single serving and all she could afford, the man began to stir.

She clicked the burner down to a low setting, grabbed a glass of water and hurried over to him. She sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at him, waiting for his eyes to drift open. The moment they did, he took in his surroundings and tried to sit up, but she held his shoulders down.

“Careful, you lost a lot of blood.” She said gently. “Have some water.” She took the glass in one hand and with the other helped him lift his head high enough to drink.

Once he’d had a few sips, she lowered him back down. He swallowed hard and asked, “Have the patrols come back?”

“No, but they’re searching everyone in the streets.”

He glanced down at his bare chest, “You washed me?”

Rahnah felt her cheeks go hot, “Only down to your waist.” She said sheepishly. “I’m Rahnah, by the way.”

“Joial.” He said, his kind brown eyes meeting hers for the first time, sending her heart pounding. He took a look around the room, noting the other bed. “Do you live here alone?”

“I do now. Ever since my sister was taken to Azahl.”

He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. We’d shut down that place if we could.”

“I'm sure you’d get rid of them all if you _could_.” She laughed without amusement. “Do you think we ever will?”

“We will.” He said with a certainty that she couldn’t help but believe. “But a lot more people are going to die before then.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that. She couldn’t even imagine how so many people had already died. It was beyond overwhelming. “Um… is there someone I should contact for you?”

“No. It’s too dangerous. I’ll find my way back as soon as I’m back on my feet.” After another awkward silence, he added. “That, uh, smells nice.”

It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about, then she jumped up and hurried over to the simmering soup that she’d entirely forgotten about. “I’m sorry, it’s not much.” She called back to him as she poured every last drop into two bowls.

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done already.”

“I’m just glad to be able to help.” She said, setting their dinner down, she helped him lean forward so she could prop him up with some pillows and bedding. When she handed him his bowl, his hand brushed against hers and tingling goosebumps ran through her body. She carefully hid the reaction as she picked up her bowl.

* * *

“What were you doing in this area anyway? I’ve never heard of Resistance activity here before.” Rahnah asked him while they ate together again the next day. He seemed to be improving, but had a long way to go still. No infection or bleeding so far, at least.

“I was supposed to deliver an isolinear rod to someone here in town.”

“You weren’t able to do it before you got shot?”

“No. I still have it.”

“Could I deliver it for you?” She asked hesitantly. “I’m already in it this far.”

“You said they’re still searching people on the streets. It’s too dangerous now.”

True. She licked the remnants off of her spoon as she thought. “How much heat can those things take before the data is corrupted?”

“I don’t know, at least 1500° C. Why? Do you have something in mind?”

“Maybe.” She said slowly, beginning to ponder an idea.

* * *

Rahnah walked carefully with a heavy box in her arms. Inside the box was a clay bowl with an exceptionally large base, which was what made the package unusually heavy. Inside the base of the bowl was Joial’s isolinear rod that she’d pressed into the lump of clay.

She struggled to keep a casual pace with her heart thumping in her chest. She rounded a corner and was immediately spotted and approached by a pair of Cardassians.

“What do we have in the box?” One of them asked while the other began scanning her.

“It’s a bowl. I’m delivering it to one of my customers.” She replied, keeping her eyes on the ground. It was the truth, at least. The man Joial had intended to meet with was someone who came in to her shop from time to time. She’d never have guessed Dalka to be a sympathizer, he had two teenage daughters to look after.

The Cardassian took the box from her and opened it to begin inspecting it while his companion started patting her down.

Rahnah waited, forcing herself to breathe evenly. They wouldn’t find anything.

After what seemed like much longer than the other inspections, he finally shoved the box with its lid still ajar into her arms and walked away toward another passerby.

She nudged the lid into place with her shoulder and continued on her way. It wasn’t much farther, but by the time she reached her destination another patrol was eyeing her from across the street.

She reached the door and knocked with as much confidence as she could gather.

Voices on the other side eventually gave way to the sound of the latch being opened. Next, the door swung part way open and Dalka stood before her.

“Rahnah, it’s not a good idea to be out on the streets any more than you have to right now.” He said in an urgent but hushed tone, looking past her at the patrol that had come close enough to make out their conversation.

“I needed to bring you the custom piece you ordered.”

His forehead creased with confusion. “I didn’t order anything.”

“Don’t you remember? I expected to have it finished for you _four days_ ago.”

It finally dawned on him. “Oh, right, how could I have forgotten?”

“Sorry it took so long.” She said while she opened the box and took the bowl out in full view of the patrol.

Dalka took it from her and made a show of inspecting it so that the patrol could see there was nothing inside. Finally, he said, “Thank you for this. You be careful out there.”

“I will.”

As she turned to leave, he caught her wrist, “Wait. I’ll walk you home.”

“That’s not necessary.” She said, waving him off. Whatever he was up to, he was more valuable to the cause than she was.

* * *

Days passed and Rahnah and Joial had fallen into a simple routine. After she closed her shop and brought home dinner, she’d check his wound and replace the bandage. After that, they’d end up talking late into the night, every night. She’d found that he was highly intelligent and thoughtful, not to mention funny. At least once every evening, he had her laughing so hard she could hardly breathe.

Today was no different, they ate together and she carefully removed the bandage. “This is looking good.” She told him. “Shouldn’t be much longer until you’re up and around.”

She gently laid fresh gauze in place and smoothed the tape around the edges as she had every day. This time, though, her fingers lingered on his warm skin. Without realizing it, her fingertips traced along the muscle outlines of his stomach, leading her to slide her hands up to his chest.

Suddenly self-conscious, she began to pull back. With a smooth movement, he took hold of her hand and brought it to his lips to kiss her fingers while his other hand slid around her waist.

She leaned down toward him and her hand slipped from his to land back on his chest. Something deep inside her stirred as she felt his muscles tighten at her touch. Finally, her lips brushed against his, then pressed tighter when he pulled her close.

She opened her mouth to kiss deeper, sliding her tongue across his lower lip. He dug his fingers gently into her hair, his other hand slid under the hem of her dress and up the back of her thigh. Every nerve tingled at his touch.

* * *

Another week past with the same routine. She cherished the time with him. Wished it would go on, but she knew he would soon leave. He had to. There were people out there that were counting on him. The Resistance was far more important than her little love affair. Asking him to stay with her would only make it more painful for him, so she never said any such thing.

Today, when she returned with their meal, she noticed his phaser rifle propped against the wall next to the back door. Her heart sank, this was it. When she sat with him to eat, she said as cheerfully as she could manage, “You’re going to leave tonight?”

“Yes.” He said, not looking up from his food at first. “I have to-”

“You don’t need to explain. I know you have to go back. It’s not like this could ever last-”

He reached out to grasp her hand, stopping her. “I don’t want this to be the end of us.”

“But how?”

“I’ll come back. As often as I can. And once the Cardassians are gone, we can be together permanently.”

He wanted to be with her permanently? The thought thrilled her. “I’d like that.” She said, squeezing his hand back.

Too soon, it was dark enough outside for him to slip away into the forest. He stood by the door, preparing his phaser. She felt the urge to give him something of hers to keep, anything, but wasn’t sure what. Then she remembered the ribbon she always used to tie her hair back when she threw pottery. It was clay-stained and tattered at the ends, but she’d had it since she was a girl.

She stepped over to the pottery wheel where the purple ribbon hung over the back of the chair and snatched it up. Folding it over on itself neatly she returned to him. “Keep this. To remember me.” She said as she pressed it into his hand.

He took it, looping it over his finger for a moment. “I’ll come back. I promise.” He said, leaning down to kiss her gently at first. She felt him shift without breaking contact with her lips while he tucked the ribbon into his pocket and slung the phaser over his shoulder. With his hands free, he slid them around her waist to pull her close. She pressed herself against his chest as his arms enveloped her.

Finally, slowly, he pulled away. He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, then turned to leave.

* * *

In the two years since she and Joial had met, the Cardassian presence in her village hadn’t let up. The constant patrols and searches made the little resistance cell’s growth slow, but they persisted. While she never considered herself to be a member, she’d delivered dozens of messages to them from Joial’s cell.

Sometimes the message came from a dead drop but once every few months, Joial would bring it himself. When he did, he only stayed for a few hours, but she cherished those visits. It was on his last visit that he’d told her he wanted them to marry once the Cardassians were gone. She’d wholeheartedly agreed.

She absentmindedly straightened the rows of pottery as she wondered when she’d see him again.

The shop door banged open so loudly that she nearly knocked a pitcher off of the shelf. Her heart raced as she turned to the terrifying sight of a pair of Cardassians storming into her shop and straight for her. Panicked, she wanted to run, to get away somehow, but there was nowhere to go. She could only stand there and wait for them.

When they reached her, one of them grabbed her arm and swung her around so that her chest was pressed against the counter.

“Meyen Rahnah. You’re coming with us.” The other one said as the first one patted her down.

When he was done, he gripped her arm again and yanked her toward the door. He pulled her so hard and so fast that she had trouble keeping her feet under her.

Outside, the two Cardassians kept her moving toward the center of town.

Had they found the Resistance cell? Did they know about her involvement? Or was this just some other stage of harassment? She supposed she’d soon find out.

Her neighbors stopped in the street and watched with worried expressions as she was roughly ushered away. But it wasn’t until they neared the center of town that she realized the horror of what was happening.

A cluster of Cardassians stood in the center of a crowd of onlookers and at their feet was the dead body of Dalka, her contact. Rahnah immediately tried to halt her forward momentum but the Cardassian holding her propelled her forward.

The sight of the body made her sick as they forced her to her knees nearby.

The Cardassian that she was certain was the leader of this squad walked calmly to her and she saw that his phaser was in his hand. “Do you know this man?” He gestured to Dalka’s body casually with the weapon.

Her immediate reaction was to say no, but that would be a transparent lie. They wouldn’t have dragged her out here if they didn’t at least know that she had been acquainted with him. “Yes.” She said quietly. “He’s one of my customers.”

“And that’s all?” He said skeptically. “You weren’t involved in any kind of dissidence with him?”

“No.” She lied.

Before he could question her further, a soldier approached from the direction of Dalka’s home, holding something. When he held it up to his superior, she could see that it was a broken piece of her pottery with the clear indentation of an isolinear rod in it.

The Cardassian in charge whipped his head back around to face her. He grabbed the back of her hair and yanked so hard she almost fell backward.

“Who else is involved?” He asked with his face right next to hers.

“I don’t know.”

“Who?” He punctuated his question by pressing his phaser against her jaw.

“I don’t know.” She choked out. Tears streamed down the sides of her face. Her whole body shook with fear. She wished she could be like those women in the Resistance, defiantly facing down the most terrifying Cardassians. But she wasn’t. All she could do was sob.

She did, in fact, know someone else that was involved, but she clamped down on the thought. She would not betray them. No matter what. She begged the Prophets to give her strength.

The Cardassian’s grip on her hair tightened and the phaser dug into the soft place under her jaw. “Names. Now.”

“I don’t know.” Her throat was so tight that the sound barely made it out.

A flash of light sliced through the air above her, striking the Cardassian in the chest. He fell forward, knocking her to the ground and coming down right on top of her. With more phaser fire screaming overhead between the alley ways and the other Cardassians she was stuck, pinned under a dead Cardassian. She pushed and shoved to free herself, but he was too heavy.

Suddenly next to her was a young woman. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I think I’m alright. But I can’t move him.”

The young woman shoved and rolled the body off of her as though it weighed almost nothing. “Come on. We need to get you out of here.” She said, pulling her up into a crouch while the phasers still blasted nearby. To the other Bajorans taking cover nearby, she shouted over the noise of battle, “Get out of here! Go back to your homes!”

With one hand around her wrist in a vice grip to urge her forward and the other on the back of her neck to keep her head down, the young woman hurried her away from the fighting down an empty alley.

Once they were out of sight, she broke into a jog with Rahnah struggling to keep up. She slowed down at each intersection to check before crossing until they’d reached the edge of the forest.

Finally, Rahnah grabbed her hand to stop her. “Dalka has daughters, they must be in danger, too.”

She stopped and regarded her. It was only now that she’d been able to get a good look at the young woman, emphasis on _young_. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen with an intensity in her pale green eyes Rahnah recognized from someone else she knew.

“Were do they live?” She said finally.

She pointed in the general direction, “That way. I can show you.”

The girl pushed past her through the brush, speaking in some kind of clipped shorthand into a communicator on her wrist. Then to Rahnah, she said, “How many Cardassians are usually stationed here.”

“Ten or twelve, I think.”

She relayed the information into the communicator and the voice that responded was joyfully familiar. Joial. She smiled to herself with immense relief.

As they neared the part of the forest that bordered Dalka’s home, Rahnah said. “His house is right through there.”

Slowly they edged closer to the clearing to where they could see the house. A pair of Cardassians stood watchfully nearby, they must have been alerted to the situation in town. When the girl silently pushed aside the low branches of a tree, they finally saw Dalka’s daughters lying dead at the Cardassians’ feet. They were too late.

The girl seemed unphased, or maybe it was an act, Rahnah couldn’t tell. She calmly leveled her phaser rifle at the Cardassians, pressing it gently against her cheek. There was no sadness, no anger, nothing at all written on her face. One would think she was simply lining up a shot while playing dom-jot.

With a barely perceptible movement, she tapped the firing key twice in rapid succession and the two Cardassians collapsed.

“By your estimate, we might have three more of them somewhere here.” She said. “Any ideas where they could-” A shower of fiery splinters exploded from the tree above her head.

In unison, they ducked their heads but the girl shoved her all the way flat into the dirt. She motioned to her to stay down while she backward belly-crawled a short distance away where she could take cover behind a tree. When she carefully peered around it, phaser fire from somewhere in the woods answered immediately back. For the first time, she seemed uncertain.

More phaser fire erupted from another direction in the forest and Rahnah thought for certain it was another Cardassian setting up a crossfire, but then she realized that it wasn’t aimed at them, but at the source of the other phaser fire. After a fierce exchange between the two parties, it halted suddenly.

In the abrupt silence, the girl peered around her hiding place, searching the forest. She finally let out a visible breath when she spotted someone and her entire posture communicated relief.

Taking that as a cue, Rahnah pushed herself up off of the ground to see Joial walking towards them with a phaser slung casually over his shoulder. Her heart leapt into her throat at the sight and she threw herself into his embrace. Despite her joy, she felt tears flood into her eyes as he held her tight.

“Dalka was our only contact. Do you know who else was involved?” He asked her, finally.

She made herself pull away from him, “Nefek. There are others, but he’s the only one I know.”

“The Cardassians undoubtedly called for backup by now, so we don’t have much time. Kee, find Nefek and help him evacuate the village. I’ll get Rahnah to the safehouse.”

“No.” Rahnah jumped in, “I’ll stay and help.”

“We can’t allow that. You need to go with Joial right now.” Kee insisted.

“This is my home.” She argued, “I know this place, it’ll go faster with my help.”

“We have to keep you safe-”

“These people are my friends! My neighbors!” Her voice rose in desperation. “I can’t leave them!”

“Listen.” Kee said evenly. “You know too much about our methods, we can’t risk you being captured.” She continued firmly. “Just go with Joial, I’ll take care of the people here. I promise.” She said with an earnestness that Rahnah couldn’t help but believe.

“I’ll meet you back at the rendezvous in two days.” Joial told Kee, who had already turned to hurry into the village.

“Nefek’s house is two blocks that way!” She called after her.

“Come one.” Joial said, guiding her away from the only home she’d ever known and everything she had left of her family.

* * *

Rahnah struggled to keep up with Joial’s fast pace. They’d been hiking uphill through the forest for less than half an hour, but they’d come a long way. Already she could see the village far off in the valley. It seemed so small from here.

Something like thunder rolled in the distance, but Joial’s quick reaction told her it wasn’t thunder at all. He grabbed her hand and pulled her under the cover of a tree just as a Cardassian ship rumbled overhead on its way to the village.

She could only watch helplessly as the ship hovered over the village and opened fire, pounding the ground with a merciless barrage.

She couldn’t stand the sight of it, so she buried her face in her hands. But the sound continued, like nothing she’d ever heard before, echoing through the valley and reverberating in her chest.

She felt Joial’s arms wrap around her and she sunk into him and sobbed, finally letting go of it all. He held her there in silence for a long time after the attack had ended. He didn’t tell her everything would be okay or try to make her stop. He just held her for as long as she needed him to.

“I guess you’re probably used to women who can handle this sort of thing without falling apart.” She said finally.

“Everybody falls apart from time to time. And the more you hold it back, the harder it comes out.”

She pondered that for a moment before changing the subject. “How much time did they have to get people out?”

“Twenty-three minutes.”

“Do you think they made it?”

“Kee said she’d take care of them, you can believe she did.”

“You must trust her a lot.”

“I should, she’d my niece.”

“That explains it.”

“What?”

“I only met her for a few minutes, but she seems a lot like you.”

“I’ll take that as a complement.” He said with a genuine smile. “Are you ready to get moving again? We have a long way to go.”

Rahnah stood up, “Lead on.”

* * *

In the morning, they had continued their journey. Rahnah had never been this far away from the village since her family had always been too poor to afford travel permits. And now she was hiking through the forests of the mountains she’d only ever seen far in the distance.

She was fascinated by how only a slight increase in elevation at the foot of one of the larger peaks changed the vegetation. Up here, the exact same types of trees were only a fraction of the height that they were at lower elevations. And there were entirely different varieties of flowers that Joial confirmed didn’t grow anywhere else in the area.

The air was thinner, though, which made it harder to keep up their pace, but he kept urging her onward. With the smaller trees, he had pointed out there was less cover if a patrol flew over.

Once they were over the small pass and they began descending, the trees and flowers again changed back to what she was used to seeing and the underbrush became thick again.

Soon after that, when the underbrush was thick enough that they couldn’t see much more than a couple of meters in front of them, Joial stopped abruptly and raised his hands. He’d told her about this procedure, so she copied him.

A few seconds later two Bajoran men came into view with phaser rifles pointed at them. One of them spoke, “Enjoying your stroll through the woods?”

“Not so much, the esani aren’t flowering.” Joial told him. There were no esani in this area, flowering or otherwise.

“You just have to look a little harder.” He replied.

“I never seem to see them anyway, they’re so hard to find.” Joial said automatically.

Satisfied, the men lowered their phasers and stepped back to allow them to pass farther through the woods.

They finally broke through the forest into a beautifully manicured clearing. The first thing that caught her eye was an enormous, pure white house, bigger than any building she’d ever seen. She counted four stories tall, and it was accented by a border of colorful flowers with more of them blooming in hanging pots and window boxes.

As though the house wasn’t an unbelievable enough site, off to one side was a lush farm, abundant with food.

She hurried to keep up with Joial and realized that the spongy ground cover they walked on was covered with tiny hot pink flowers. She’d never have imagined a place like this existed anywhere on Bajor.

She was so transfixed by the beauty of it all that she hadn’t noticed a man come out to greet them.

“Joial!” he said with a friendly voice.

“Roat!” He replied as they greeted each other with a half man-hug. “This is Rahnah.” He introduced her to Roat.

“It’s a pleasure.” He said to her, “Lorbi should be down shortly. Looks like you’ll be taking our last room.”

“Lucky me.” She said, unsure what else to say.

“I’ll make sure it’s ready.” He said, leaving them alone in the courtyard at the back of the house.

Joial had already explained how this worked. He’d have to leave right away after passing her off to this Lorbi. She’d be given a room, then they’d work out how she could contribute to this community. She wondered if they had a kiln. No matter if they didn’t, she knew how to build one.

When Lorbi, a Vedic, it turned out, showed up, he and Joial exchanged a few friendly pleasantries then Joial turned to her and swept her into an embrace. Without a word, he bent down and kissed her deeply. She melted into him as he pulled her close.

She never wanted this moment to end, but too soon it did and he pulled back to look at her.

“I love you.” He said simply.

She tried to say the same to him but found her voice wouldn’t work. He understood anyway. She held back her tears as she did every time he left her to go back to his life out there.

Finally, he let go of her and turned to leave.

“Wait!” She finally found her voice, grabbing his hand to stop him, then she glanced over at Lorbi. “Could you take a few minutes to marry us?”

The broad-shouldered man broke into a grin. “Certainly!” He waved some people over from the farm area.

Joial moved to face her, taking both of her hands in his. “Are you sure about this? You know it’s dangerous out there. Any day I could wind up-”

“I don’t care!” She interrupted. She didn’t need to hear him say it, she knew. “I would rather be married to you for a short time than never have the chance.”

He considered her for a long time, weighing the risks, probably. Then, finally, he broke into a smile that wrinkled the corners of his eyes. “Okay.”

By then two workers from the farm had arrived and Lorbi began. “The Prophets smile when two people find each other, and they celebrate when they commit their lived to one another.” He took hold of their hands before continuing. “Boray pree hadokee. Tolata impara boresh. Preeya Joial, preeya Rahnah. Abrem varo atel.”

Without waiting for the command to do so, she leapt into his arms for their first married kiss.


	4. Ren and Kee

“…we’ll get these kids to the safe house in Ilvia, and then-”

“No.” A tiny, yet defiant voice interrupted.

Ren turned to see the four youngsters his cell had rescued from a the Cardassians a few days earlier. The kids had been accused of vandalism or some such offence, it didn’t matter what it was or whether they’d done it. What mattered was that the Cardassians believed they were guilty and, just as many crimes Bajorans might commit, it carried a death sentence.

Not a single member of his cell had said a word against rescuing them, but now that they had them, they had to decide what to do with them. They’d been ID’d and processed by the Cardassians, so there was no way they could return to their families. Sending them to one of the safe houses seemed to be the only option.

But now, the youngest and by far smallest one of them was telling him ‘no.’ He couldn’t keep a trace of amusement out of his voice. “What do you mean ‘no’? ‘No’ what?”

“No, we won’t hide away at some safe house.” The girl, Keedra, insisted, standing boldly only a fraction of the height of the three boys that flanked her: Nin, Ikis and Hep.

“We talked about this.” He said more patiently than he felt. “You can’t go back to your families.”

“We know that.” She said flatly, apparently taking the role as the group’s spokesperson.

“Then what do you suggest?” He asked, genuinely curious.

“We’re going to join you.” She said, drawing a ripple of chuckles from the adults behind him, but the steel in her pale green eyes told him she was absolutely serious.

“That’s not an option-”

At that, she let loose, her tiny voice becoming a sharp weapon. “You think that because we’re young, that we don’t know the world we live in? That we’re somehow sheltered from the atrocities that go on around us every day? That we don’t have just as much right to defend our world as you do? In fact, I think we have even _more_ right to do so, because it’s _our_ future.

“We’ve been convicted of a crime against the Cardassians. Branded as criminals. We can never reenter normal society as long as _they_ are still here. And I’d rather die fighting for Bajor’s freedom than to live the rest of my life hiding in fear.”

She held his gaze without flinching. He detected some muttered agreements behind him as he considered her. He’d never have been capable of even considering such a request at that age, much less demand it.

While she watched him, he weighed the options. She had the fire, the passion, the guts. He could see that. She could be valuable to their cause. She could save lives. She could help them drive the Cardassians off of Bajoran soil.

But at what cost? There was no denying that they were _children_. If he took them into their group, he’d be committing them to a life of hardship and hate. Turning them into terrorists and killers. And most likely ensuring their deaths. But what alternative did he have? Drag them kicking and screaming to the safe house? Drop them off on their own somewhere to fend for themselves?

He slipped the strap of his phaser rifle off of his shoulder and tossed the weapon to her. She caught it with barely a flinch, struggling slightly under its weight, but held it with confidence and a hard defiance. He almost felt sorry for the Cardassians already.

He regarded her for another moment before delivering them all into a cruel future. “I’ll give you one month, then we’ll make a decision.”

Her expression almost imperceptibly shifted to self-satisfaction.

“Come on,” He said, beginning to turn away, “I’ll show you how to use that.”

* * *

Once Ren had a hold of her wrists, he knew he had her. All he had to do from there was to turn her around so her arms here wrapped around her chest, knock her feet out from under her and he had her pinned hard in the semi-soft leaf litter he’d chosen for her practice. It had been three exhausting days and she hadn’t taken him down once. There were a few times she almost had him, but he’d always managed to stay up.

She wiggled and pulled under his grip and finally let out a frustrated yell as she accepted that she’d lost again. He wished he could make this easy on her, but he couldn’t, for her own good. If she couldn’t take him down in a friendly sparing match, there’s no way she’d stand a chance against a Cardassian out to kill her. Or worse.

Once she stopped struggling, he let go for her to stand up and face him again. He’d suggested multiple times that they take a break, but she’d have none of it. She understood all too well the importance of what they were doing. She shook herself off and stood across from him again.

“You’re still trying to overpower me. Out maneuver me instead, like Oardoli showed you.” He told her as they reached for each other again. He himself was roughly the same size and build as a Cardassian soldier, so he’d never needed to learn how to fight against a larger, stronger foe and was coming to realize how different it was. He found his admiration climbing a bit higher for the slight but fierce women in the resistance that could do it.

As they grappled, he could feel her struggling against his greater strength and held her in place. “You see, right here? You’re not going to be able to overcome my strength. Remember what Oardoli showed y-”

Before he could finish his sentence, she virtually evaporated from his grasp and he felt himself heaved to the ground. The impact knocked the wind out of him and he could only lay there for a few seconds, looking up at her triumphant grin.

“Woo! Go Kee!” Nin called out from nearby, accompanied by a few more whoops from others who seemed to think they had nothing better to do.

Ren rolled to the side and pushed himself to his knees. “Good job. _Now_ are you ready to take a break?”

Kee bounced lightly on the balls of her feet with a wildly joyful expression on her face, “No! Let’s do it again!”

* * *

One month. Had he really given them just one month? The time passed by faster than he could have imagined and by the time the month was up, no one even questioned whether the new recruits would be staying with them. The three boys picked up the basics of what they needed to know as well as could be expected. And Joial who’d worked with them as an informant for years but was entirely new to combat, integrated smoothly.

Then there was Kee. She was a natural. Once she began learning something, she conquered it, and then some. Energy weapons, sparring, bladed weapons, explosives. And a few bruises, cuts and burns didn’t deter her in the slightest. If not for her age, he’d have thought she’d been doing this for years, not weeks. Had there been doubt in anyone’s mind about her commitment and ability, it was long gone by now.

He’d wrestled for days with the decision to take her into battle for the first time. There was a small, four-man control station than ran the sensor grid for a ten kellipate radius. They’d disabled it multiple times, but he wanted to knock it out for longer than that. The Cardassians would rebuild it, of course, and during that time, there would be increased patrols in the area. But it would force them to commit valuable resources that would otherwise be used against them. It was a small strike, but sometimes that’s all the Resistance had. He put Kee on lookout with Wallo while he went in to plant the bombs himself.

Kee had made her first kill that day. With zero hesitation from what Wallo said. She was absolutely silent on their hike back to their camp. Since his first day with the Resistance when he’d watched Veya kill again and again without blinking, he’d learned for himself the terrible cost. But the first time… that was the hardest.

Later that night, he found her sitting alone away from the fire resting her back against the trunk of a tree with her phaser in her lap. He held out a ration packet for her, but she waved it away.

“I’m not hungry.” She said meekly.

He continued holding it in front of her until she took it from him and he sat down against the same tree. “I was thrown into combat right away when I joined the Resistance. I fired my weapon in the general direction of the enemy, but with all of the chaos, I don’t know if I actually hit anybody.” He slowly tore open his own ration packet. “The first time I intentionally, specifically killed a Cardassian, though, was a few days later.”

She sat in silence with her face still toward the empty forest, but he knew he had her full attention. “It hit me pretty hard afterward. I felt like quitting. I didn’t think I could live with it, much less do it again.” He took a bite of his ration and took the time to chew it down before he went on. “Every one of us has a story like that. We’ve all been through it. No one would think less of you if you decided to leave now.”

“You’ve all had your first time.” She said softly. “And you stayed in the fight. I’m not quitting either.” She said with significantly less bravado than she’d had thirty days ago.

She seemed so small and fragile in that moment. He wanted nothing more than to scoop her up in his lap and tell her it would all be okay. Let her cry it out and say she’d never have to do it again. But that would be a transparent and cruel lie. Her life from here on out would never be ‘okay’. Even if she never took another life, this one would leave a mark on her pagh forever.

“Does it get easier?” She finally asked.

“It gets easier to pull the trigger. To justify it. To pack down the feelings. To hide them from yourself and others. But it doesn’t get easier to take a life. And if it ever does, that’s when we’re really lost.”

She finally opened up her fist with the ration packet he hadn’t realized she’d crumpled and smoothed it out slowly.

“Come on. Tulkish was about to tell everybody how he bagged that pack of power cells right out from under the Cardassians’ noses.”

She finally shot him a lopsided but genuine smile as they pushed themselves off of the ground.

* * *

* * *

* * *

The adults were standing around deciding what to do with them. Kee hated that. Hated when they talked over their heads. Hated that they thought they could make the decision for them. Her uncle was the only one who even had a right to have a say in what she did, but that didn’t cool her anger in the slightest. When she was sure she had the support of the other three, she turned towards the adults who were, of course, ignoring them completely.

“…we’ll get these kids to the safe house in Ilvia, and then-”

“No.” Kee interrupted the cell’s leader.

“What do you mean ‘no’? ‘No’ what?” He nearly laughed, which only served to infuriate her.

“No, we won’t hide away at some safe house.” She could feel Nin, Ikis and Hep at her back, standing strong before the semicircle of rebels facing them.

“We talked about this.” He patronized. “You can’t go back to your families.”

“We know that.” She said, somehow managing to reign in her temper better than she ever had in her life. She had to maintain control, anything that could come off as a tantrum would only serve to undermine her point.

“Then what do you suggest?” He asked.

“We’re going to join you.” 

The amusement that ran through the grownups pushed her closer to losing it.

“That’s not an option-” He began.

At that, she let loose. “You think that because we’re young, that we don’t know the world we live in? That we’re somehow sheltered from the atrocities that go on around us every day? That we don’t have just as much right to defend our world as you do? In fact, I think we have even _more_ right to do so, because it’s _our_ future.” She threw her words at them like a weapon.

She barely took a breath before lashing out again. “We’ve been convicted of a crime against the Cardassians. Branded as criminals. We can never reenter normal society as long as _they_ are still here. And I’d rather die fighting for Bajor’s freedom than to live the rest of my life hiding in fear.”

Her eyes locked with his and she forced herself to stand tall, though her heart was pounding wildly. She wanted this. She wasn’t sure why, all she knew was that she _had_ to be part of this. She knew enough about the life of a resistance fighter to be terrified of it. Privation, torture, death. And yet, there was nothing else she wanted more. She had to be one of them.

She held his scrutinizing gaze for a long time. Finally, he slipped the strap of his phaser rifle off of his shoulder and tossed the weapon to her. She barely caught it, struggling under its weight, but held it like she’d seen a weapon held a thousand times.

He regarded her for another long moment before backing down. “I’ll give you one month, then we’ll make a decision.”

She had to hold her excitement in check as securely as she’d held her temper before. She had a chance. Thirty days. She’d convince him in thirty days.

“Come on,” He said, beginning to turn away, “I’ll show you how to use that.”

Kee followed as casually as she could when all she wanted to do was leap childishly for joy. Even so, the weight of the weapon was already beginning to strain her muscles.

* * *

He grabbed a hold of Kee’s wrists with a vice grip and spun her around, locking her arms around her own body. Her feet suddenly disappeared out from under her and she landed face down in the dry leaves. She sucked air back into her lungs after it had been knocked out of her and wiggled and pulled to free herself.

Finally overwhelmed by the frustration of the last three days of this, she let out an angry cry, annoyed by how cute it sounded with her little-girl voice. He would let her up as soon as she stopped struggling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from trying anyway.

When she did force herself to lie still, he released her and she got back up to face him. Of course, her anger was at herself rather than at him. Her body just didn’t do what she needed it to do. He’d been a patient and effective teacher to her. Under his guidance, she’d already learned so much. But this continued to elude her. Even though it might be the most important part of her training.

She’d hated the way the Cardassians had handled her and the others when they’d been arrested. She’d been powerless to fight back as they shoved them around, strapped them down to take a lock of hair and a tooth from each of them for their DNA records. She never wanted to be that helpless again. She would do this, she would master it, she would be strong.

She shook herself off and stood across from him again.

“You’re still trying to overpower me. Out maneuver me instead, like Oardoli showed you.” He told her as they reached for each other again.

She struggled under his strength, like trying to move the trunk of a huge tree, he wouldn’t budge.

“You see, right here? You’re not going to be able to overcome my strength. Remember what Oardoli showed y-”

She tore her mind away from his strength and focused on what Oardoli had shown her. Confronted with a tree, bend like a sapling. She folded her body in the same direction as he’d been pushing and found that she twisted easily out of his grasp, remembering to hold on to his forearm. From there she reached her leg across his shins, pulled his arm down and toward her while shoving his torso away from her. He tumbled over her outstretched leg and hit the ground with a thud that equaled his size.

She had to blink a few times to be sure she’d really knocked him down. It wasn’t until he rolled over and smiled up at her that she realized she was grinning herself. She felt a surge of triumphant energy.

“Woo! Go Kee!” Nin called out from nearby.

Ren rolled to the side and pushed himself to his knees. “Good job. _Now_ are you ready to take a break?”

Kee bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, “No! Let’s do it again!” She could do this all night now.

* * *

Kee sat alone with her back propped up against a tree. She needed to be away from the group for a while. Alone.

She stared out into the dark, quiet forest only seeing the empty spaces. Her hands traced the contours of her phaser absentmindedly. The mission that day kept replaying in her mind. Everything had gone according to plan. She’d done what was expected of her. Why couldn’t she get it out of her mind?

One Cardassian soldier. One. Out of the thousands that Resistance members killed every year. One enemy. One trespasser. One thief.

She knew this was part of this life. She hadn’t expected it to be so hard. Just thinking about doing it again made her stomach twist. But she had to get a handle on it. She _had_ to do it again. And again. And again.

Soft sounds of someone approaching pulled her out of the endless loop. She could tell without looking up that it was Ren. They’d spend nearly twenty-six hours a day together for the last month, she knew his sounds anywhere.

A ration packet appeared in her line of sight but she waved it away. “I’m not hungry.”

He continued holding it in front of her until she gave in and took it from him, then he sat down against the tree next to her. “I was thrown into combat right away when I joined the Resistance. I fired my weapon in the general direction of the enemy, but with all of the chaos, I don’t know if I actually hit anybody.” She watched him in her peripheral vision slowly tear open his own ration packet. “The first time I intentionally, specifically killed a Cardassian, though, was a few days later.”

A lump formed in her throat. That’s what she was afraid of. He’d seen how she reacted to killing. He’d given her thirty days and today’s mission was a test to see if she made the cut. She didn’t. She couldn’t do this and he knew it. She wasn’t all she pretended to be after all. Her ration pack’s wrapper crinkled in her fist.

He finally continued without her responding. “It hit me pretty hard afterward. I felt like quitting. I didn’t think I could live with it, much less do it again.” He took a casual bite of his ration as though they were chatting about nothing but a stroll in the woods. “Every one of us has a story like that. We’ve all been through it. No one would think less of you if you decided to leave now.”

That hit her almost physically in the stomach, harder even than the thought of doing it again. He was giving her an out. Yet not kicking her out. “You’ve all had your first time.” She said softly, resolving to take any opportunity he gave her. “And you stayed in the fight. I’m not quitting either.” She said feeling far less sure than she’d had thirty days ago.

She waited for him to respond, to tell her that she’d already had her chance. That she’d have to leave. But he didn’t. He just sat there next to her, eating the rest of his ration.

If they all felt this way at first, she wondered… “Does it get easier?” She finished the thought out loud.

“It gets easier to pull the trigger. To justify it. To pack down the feelings. To hide them from yourself and others. But it doesn’t get easier to take a life. And if it ever does, that’s when we’re really lost.”

Then that is what she would do. She would justify it, pack it down and hide her feelings. She would master that so she could become a tool for her people’s freedom. A living weapon. And no matter what she felt inside, no matter what she had to tell herself to keep going, it would never crack the surface again. She vowed this to herself as she smoothed the crumpled package in her hand.

“Come on. Tulkish was about to tell everybody how he bagged that pack of power cells right out from under the Cardassians’ noses.” He said, casting her an open smile as they pushed themselves off of the ground.

She couldn’t help but grin back in the darkness. She was one of them after all.


	5. Jeff

Jeff forced himself not to poke at the Bajoran ridges on his nose. In his three years with Starfleet Intelligence, he’d worn plenty of disguises, but this was the first cosmetic alteration. It just seemed… strange. And even stranger that it really did feel like it was part of him. It did make it easier to take on the role of ‘Laru’ a common laborer from Kendra province. But at least the implant in his eye remained inconspicuous to him. The only indication that was there was a tiny icon in the corner of his vision that would allow him to activate and control the camera contained within the implant.

He couldn’t get Kee’s face out of his mind since leaving her on that moon a few days earlier. He should have tried harder to get her to come with them. If he could get her into Federation space, maybe she could have been convinced to stay. She was obviously smart, compassionate, tough. Qualities that could be used to become something more than a killer.

He paced in the small space he, Mal and Sam had been cooped up in for hours. They’d been able to bribe a Kressari merchant to smuggle them into the Bajoran system. The merchant had been utterly baffled at their request, probably accustomed to smuggling Bajorans _out_ rather than _in_.

Jeff only managed to pace three steps before reaching the other wall. He wasn’t being fair to Kee, he scolded himself. She was most definitely far more than just a killer. She was a freedom fighter, with all of the noble adjectives that one could use with it, and that was the life she’d chosen for herself. He turned back to walk the other direction again.

“Can you stop that?” Mal said in a hushed but clearly annoyed voice. Or, rather, _Jopir_ , her cover name.

“Sorry.” He said and sat next to her, across from Sam, _Isku_ , who was working on one of the few components they’d been able to scavenge from their shuttle after the Cardassians had torn it apart.

“There’s nothing we could have done different.” She told him.

He felt the tension in his shoulders relax a tiny bit. She was always his rock, his strength. If there had been anything they could have done for Kee and her partner, he could be certain she’d have done it.

A subtle shift in inertia told him they’d dropped out of warp. They’d dock at Terok Nor to offload supplies, then beam the remainder of the shipment, including the stowaways down to the planet. From there they’d have to find their way around the planet to gather intel on what was happening here.

* * *

The Kressari merchant had delivered them to a part of Bajor in northern Janitza province. Despite the craggy mountains barely visible to the south, the terrain here was flat and the fauna sparse, leaving them little natural cover to make their escape once they left the shelter of the maze of industrial buildings they’d found themselves in. They’d been able to slink along the shipping area and managed to catch the tail end of a group of Bajoran workers coming out of a factory of some kind.

Jeff watched the workers as he ambled along beside them. They were thin but not emaciated. Exhausted, but nothing like the overworked laborers they’d helped Kee free on that moon. This wasn’t looking like the place they needed to be. Though, if they could find a place to stay for a couple of days, they’d have a chance to get their bearings.

The line of people wound between warehouses and factories, adding people at each one, finally breaking out into the open. There, they began following an old, crumbling road.

“I think that’s a settlement up ahead.” Mal said quietly.

It took him a moment to see past the sea of bodies to catch a glimpse of a small grouping of clay-colored buildings up ahead. As they approached, he began watching for shops, businesses, anything that could give them a foothold in this place, but it was little more than a shanty town.

Half of the buildings looked like they should be condemned, but the people he’d been walking with went right inside. The other half of the buildings looked sturdy enough, but they were plain and unkempt. Thinking back to grade school and the Bajor he’d read about with and ancient and artistic culture, the sight of this place was difficult to reconcile. But he suspected this was only the tip of a very bloody and horrifying iceberg.

He soon found he and his two companions were nearly alone in the street. “Hey.” He called to a man nearby.

The man hesitated and took a cautious step toward the strangers.

“We’re not from around here. We were wondering if there’s anywhere we could find a place to stay.”

“Depends on how much money you have.”

The three of them glanced at each other. Most of the money they’d brought had been ‘confiscated’ by the Cardassians when they searched their ship and they’d had to use all of what they had left to pay off that Kressari. Jeff could only show the man his empty hands.

The man’s face immediately closed off. “There’s a place down that way,” he gestured off to one side, “one of the few wood-built houses in this place. The woman there, Depra, sometimes puts people up in exchange for work around the house.” He didn’t wait for a thank you, only meandered away.

“Sounds like about as good a deal as we’re going to get.” Sam said.

* * *

The side street was eerily deserted. Mal couldn’t tell for the life of her where that crowd from before had disappeared to. This place was like a ghost town. Dusty streets, dead trees, the only thing living around here seemed to be parched and straggly weeds. This was nothing like the Bajor she’d read about in history class.

“There.” Jeff pointed out a house that stood apart from the rest of the stucco-like homes. Wood siding with a crumbling dry stack wall around the front.

As they passed the opening in the wall, they came upon a little girl no older than six or seven drawing in the sand with a stick. When they got closer, Mal could see that she wasn’t just drawing, she had found other colors of sand from somewhere else to add to her intricate pattern, like the sand mandalas she’d seen back on Earth.

Finally, the girl looked up, squinting in the low sun that was at their backs. “Hi.” She said, more friendlily than any interaction they’d had so far.

Jeff knelt down to her level, “Hi. Are your parents around?”

“I don’t have parents.” She said simply.

Before Jeff could question further, a woman hurried out of the house. “Paka! What have I said about playing out here. Get inside right now.”

The girl slowly and wordlessly left her artwork and slunk inside.

The woman turned to the newcomers with an impatient sigh, “Can I help you?”

“Are you Depra?” Jeff asked.

“Yes.” She said warily.

“I’m Laru, this is Jopir and Isku. Someone told us you might have a place we can stay for a few nights.”

“I do, if you’re willing to work or pay for it.”

“We don’t have any money, but we’ll do whatever work you need.”

She glanced briefly at his earring, then the others. At Kee’s suggestion, they’d removed any indications of d’jarras from them. “Alright, but you’d better get inside. It’s not a good idea to stand around outside this time of day.” She said cryptically as she ushered them inside.

Unlike the disheveled exterior, the inside was well kept. Not lavish in any way, but clean and neat. It smelled faintly of incense, even.

Depra walked them up a narrow staircase to an attic apartment, empty except for a few well-used sleeping mats on the floor.

“I can provide you one meal a day and you are to be available for any chores I might need for as long as you’re here.”

Jeff turned fully towards her, “Thank you, Depra. We appreciate your hospitality.” He said, taking her hands and laying on the charm.

Depra’s cheeks flushed noticeably, “Well, um, you can come down and have something to eat in about an hour.” She hurried away down the stairs.

Mal rolled her eyes at Jeff, such a shameless flirt. He only shrugged. It had certainly gotten them out of plenty of tight spots in the past.

Noises outside the small, open window caught her attention. She slid the gauzy window covering to the side and peered out to find a cluster of Cardassian soldiers spreading out through the streets.

Sam moved up next to her to see, “I bet that’s why she didn’t want the girl out there.”

“And why the streets are so empty.” She added as a sense of dread tugged at her chest.

Jeff joined them as they watched the patrols spread throughout the settlement.

* * *

About an hour later the three spies made their way down the stairs to be greeted by smells that made Jeff’s stomach twist with hunger. Along with a few pieces of equipment, they’d been able to salvage just a handful of field rations from their ship. Each one supposedly lasted three days, but hour fourty-eight was when hunger started to set in anyway.

When they followed the smell to the simple kitchen, they found Paka carrying a stack of plain, ceramic bowls to the table, followed by Depra with a steaming pot of some kind of thick, heavily seasoned sauce. “Oh good, you found us.” She said as she set it down heavily next to a stack of flat bread wrapped in a towel and a bowl of rice on a rough wooden table that looked like it had been pieced together from multiple sources.

“It smells wonderful.” Sam told her.

They sat and waited while Depra dropped a heap of rice into one of the bowls, followed by the sauce from the pot. As she poured it, he could see lumps of some sort. Then she set a piece of bread on top and handed it to Mal first. She repeated the process for Sam and Jeff, then Paka and finally herself having estimated precisely even portions down to the last bit of each item.

Paka dug in first, scooping up a bite of both rice and sauce and piling it on her bread.

Jeff picked up his bread in one hand and stabbed one of those chunks with his utensil. Long before it reached his mouth, he could tell it was going to be spicy. The aromatic sauce wafted up into his nose, nearly singeing the skin inside. But as hungry as he was, he didn’t pause long enough for that to register in his mind.

The moment it landed on his tongue, though he realized his mistake. The heat spread across his tongue and felt like it would burn a hole right through it. He called on all of his SI training to keep the reaction off of his face even as his eyes began to water.

As quickly as he could without letting on, he stuffed a chunk of bread into his mouth. With the bread soaking up the spice, he glanced at Paka who was happily chomping away at her meal without any reaction.

“With what we’ve had to eat over the last few weeks, it’s nice to have a real meal. Thank you.” He told Depra.

“Oh, well, you’ll certainly be earning it tomorrow.” She said between bites, also with no reaction to the burning that must have been going on in her mouth.

“So, what kind of work do we have to look forward to?” He reluctantly scooped another bite, making sure to get some rice with it, and wondering how many hundreds of thousands of Scoville units this dish was.

“Well, let’s see. You probably noticed when you came in that the wall needs to be restacked. The well pump needs to be fixed, if any of you have the ability to do that…”

Jeff didn’t miss the glint of excitement in Sam’s eye at that. Or maybe it was the spice burning through his retinas.

Depra went on with a long list of odd jobs. After a few more bites, Jeff was beginning to get used to the scorching pain in his mouth. Other than that, it really did have an excellent flavor. Who needed taste buds anyway?

“Where are you all headed?” Depra asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Oh, um, looking for work that pays well enough to get by.” He said vaguely.

“You’ll be moving on from here, then. Even if you could manage to get one of the factory jobs, eventually one or all of you would be picked up for work in the labor camp. No matter how careful you are to go unnoticed.”

“Thanks for the tip.” He said, filing away that information for later.

* * *

Between the three of them, they’d been able to complete Depra’s chore list in only half of the day and she enthusiastically assigned them more. By the end of the day, Jeff was wiped out.

Sam had already crashed on one of the sleeping mats. Mal was the only one who seemed to be capable of any kind of movement, so naturally, she’d decided on yoga. As though they hadn’t had plenty of bending and stretching all day long. She’d forbidden him from joining her years ago when he couldn’t seem to do it without joking around. Besides falling all over himself and knocking her down.

Paka’s face appeared at the top of the stairs and when she saw Mal, she watched with wide eyes. “What are you doing.”

“Just some stretches.” She said simply as she moved from plank to up-dog.

The little girl continued to watch her move to down-dog then to three-legged-down-dog, stretching one long leg gracefully toward the ceiling.

“Did you need something?” He asked Paka.

She blinked as though she’d completely forgotten she’d had a reason to come up. “Um, Depra asked me to tell you she has something she needs your help with in about half an hour.”

“Okay.” He told her, but she had already turned back to Mal, who was in the process of moving into warrior three. Paka studied her, then did her best to copy the movement on her stick-thin legs.

Mal glanced down at her, “Very good. We’ll go into pyramid next.” But just as she was lowering her foot to the floor, they heard shouting outside the window.

He and Mal hurried over to see what was happening, waking Sam up in the process. Paka approached cautiously. Outside the window the Cardassians were back. Two of them were confronting a man and a teenage boy with a third Cardassian on the way.

Looking closer, Jeff could see that the boy’s wrists were cuffed. His heart sank, what were they seeing?

Between the three Cardassians, they separated the boy and the man, who struggled to reach the boy. His son? The scuffle increased in severity as the two were further separated. It seemed the Cardassians were arresting the boy.

Noisy footsteps hurried up the stairs behind them. “Paka! There you are!” Depra exclaimed when she reached the top. “Come. You shouldn’t be at the window right now.” She added, holding her arms out to the girl.

“I’m sorry.” She said and tore herself away from the window.

“Don’t get involved.” Depra warned them as she ushered the girl away.

By the time they turned back to the window, the altercation in the street had escalated even more. With the chaos of the overlapping voices, the universal translator couldn’t make sense of what they were saying, but the meaning was clear. The father was trying to reach his son, the son was trying to stop his father from getting involved and the Cardassians were barking orders at both.

Suddenly, without provocation, one of the Cardassians shoved the man onto the ground, pulled his phaser out and casually shot him point-blank in the chest.

With the boy’s scream echoing between the buildings, Mal shoved herself away from the window and marched straight for the stairs. He knew exactly what she was thinking and rushed to stop her. “No! You can’t go out there.”

“Yes, I can.” She hissed through gritted teeth.

“What are you going to do? Go out there and confront those Cardassians by yourself? Get yourself killed? What good would that do?”

“We can’t just do nothing!”

“Of course, we can’t.” He lowered his voice, unsure where Depra and Paka had gone. “But you can’t end this by taking on every Cardassian on the planet one by one. The best way we can help them is to complete our mission. Bring back enough evidence to convince the Federation Council to get involved and put pressure on the Cardassian government.”

 _“Politics!”_ She said like it was a curse.

“It’s our best shot. You can get yourself killed trying to help one kid. Or you can help save his whole race.”

“Sounds like cold Vulcan excuses to me.”

“Maybe, but right now, that’s all we can do. Unless you plan on joining the Resistance, we have to stick to the mission.”

She turned back toward the window. The Cardassians and the boy were gone, leaving the man’s body where it fell in the street. Mal stood and stared at it in silence.

* * *

As tired as they were, none of them slept that night. Jeff heard Mal up pacing several times. That wasn’t like her at all, she was usually the one to keep him grounded and focused on the mission. As a Bajoran would say, Prophets help them if they both got caught up in the situation.

Today, Depra had given them the task of weeding her vegetable garden that was situated in a sheltered place behind her house. Soon enough, Paka was there to ‘help.’

“…with the root of this one you can make _veklava_.” She pointed out a row of spindly stems poking out of the ground. “And if you add this to _etash_ stew, it makes it spicy, but if you pick it before it’s mature and dry it in the sun, it’s even hotter…”

After last night’s meal, he wondered what she could possibly consider ‘spicy.’ But even the girl’s run-on monologue on each and every plant in the garden didn’t distract him from the incident the previous night. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him. “Do you know what was going on last night? Why they arrested that boy?”

She stopped mid-sentence, “Tasso? He was stealing medical supplies for the Resistance.” She said as though it was common knowledge.

“There’s a Resistance cell around here?”

“Yes, and when I’m old enough, I’m going to join them.” She said boldly, despite witnessing what had happened.

He wondered for a moment if Kee had once been just like Paka. A child far too knowledgeable about what happened in her world, yet eager to join the fight. With any luck, Paka would never have the chance.

“Do you have any idea where they might have taken him?” Mal asked and Jeff shot her a warning look.

“There’s a place in the industrial district,” She pointed to the port where they’d arrived, just visible on the horizon, “where they take people that are arrested. They call it a peacekeeping complex. Nobody comes back from there. Or they might have sent him to the labor camp. Nobody comes back from there either.”

The group fell silent, but Jeff could practically hear Mal’s mind conjuring up rescue plans. He doubted he’d be able to stop her at this point.

“Sometimes the Resistance blows up the buildings there, too.” Paka told them just as cheerfully as when she’d been talking about the garden plants. “Depra doesn’t want me to join them, but once I have my _Itanu_ , she can’t stop me.”

Sam mouthed a shocked _‘fourteen’_ to him. They all had learned enough about Bajoran culture to be able to blend in, and knew that a child of the age of fourteen was allowed to make their own decisions. That gave them less than ten years to end the Occupation before Paka’s life was forever changed.

While she continued to tell them all of the legends she’d heard about the Resistance, Jeff glanced at Mal again. She had _that look_ on her face that told him going in after the boy was a done deal.

* * *

Mal had stewed silently all day. Jeff hurried to follow her inside when they were done for the day. He didn’t like the situation with the boy any more than she did, but they had their orders. _Gather information, don’t get involved._

“Mal!” He could have kicked himself for using her real name. He knew better. Hopefully if Depra or Paka heard, they’d just think it was just some inarticulate word.

“Don’t say it, Laru!” She halfway turned then kept walking. At least she remembered their cover names.

“Don’t say what?”

“Don’t tell me not to get involved.” She said in a hushed tone as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “We have our orders not to interfere. Besides that, there’s the prime directive. And the fact that we’re in no position to mount any kind of rescue.” She stomped up the stairs as she ranted. “We have no intel, no weapons, no backup, nothing.” She spoke more freely when they reached the top. “I know all of that.” She stopped in the center of the room and turned to face him. “But I know that going after the boy is the right thing to do.”

“You heard Paka. There’s a Resistance cell somewhere here. Let them take care of their own.”

“Who knows if they’ll be able to help him in time. We don’t even know that they know what happened.”

“Now you’re grasping.”

She bit off her reply when they heard footsteps on the stairs. As soon as Sam’s face appeared, she started back up. “It’s no secret what they do to their prisoners. We cannot stand by and allow it to happen to a teenage boy! We are Starfleet officers, intelligence agents, we have a duty to help people who need us. Order or not. Prime Directive or not.”

“You know that’s not the way it works.” Being the voice of reason was not typically his strong suit, and definitely not his normal role in this partnership. Usually he was the one ready to fly off the handle and she’d reign him in. The fact was that he wanted to go after the boy every bit as much as she did.

“Okay, so let’s talk about the mission.” She said with her negotiating tone of voice. “Our mission is to gather information, bring back hard evidence.” She ticked off each one on her fingers. “Get him,” she pointed to Sam who was doing his best to ignore the argument by working on a piece of equipment, “to a computer interface so he can hack in a pull files, _actual_ documentation. That’s not going to happen around here.” She lifted her hands to indicate where they were.

She had a point. Even if they gained access to a computer at some low security factory or warehouse, chances were, they wouldn’t find what they needed. Breaking into a military base, especially one where prisoners were being held, might give them exactly what they were looking for. And if they just so happened to release some of those prisoners while they were there…

Great, now he was talking himself into it, too. “Damn it. You and your logic.”

“Hey, you started it.”

“So, how are we going to do this with no intel, no weapons and no backup?”

* * *

Step one was getting back in there and into this ‘peacekeeping complex’. Assuming the boy, Tasso, had others he’d been working with, they’d be a place to start. It didn’t take much prompting to get Paka to point them in the right direction. She didn’t know anything for certain, of course, but she could at least tell them who he tended to walk home with at the end of a work day.

That person’s name was Milig.

Jeff and Mal snuck out after another tongue searing dinner like a pair of overly enthusiastic teenagers, leaving Sam to make excuses for them if their host found that they were gone. He was more of a tech than a commando anyway.

They slunk from shadow to shadow avoiding the patrols. At one point, they’d been stuck with two Cardassians approaching from opposite direction, but they were able to slip between a couple of refuse bins.

They let out a slow breath together before creeping back out into the alley. They peered into the darkness in both directions. The lack of working street lamps in most of the settlement made it easier to hide, but didn’t do them any favors when it came to navigation.

“This way.” Mal said, starting off in the opposite direction than he’d been about to suggest. But he made a point to never question her superior sense of direction.

Sure enough, within minutes, they reached the home Paka had described to them. With patrols still on the main road, they crept up to the back door and knocked lightly.

They waited on high alert. There was the distinct possibility than Milig wouldn’t open the door for a pair of strangers and they’d have made this trip for nothing.

Finally, the window covering moved ever so slightly. Mal flashed a friendly smile and the door cracked open a bit. A moment later it opened wider and a young man reached out and pulled them inside.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be out there right now?!” He scolded them.

“We’re beginning to.” Jeff said sheepishly as Mal focused on keeping a watch through the window. “We’re here about Tasso. We saw what happened.”

Milig glowered at them suspiciously. “What do you know of it?”

“We know that he was helping the Resistance and that you were friends. We know that he’ll be dead if somebody doesn’t help him soon.”

“Help him how?” He said, still not relaxing at all.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“And what’s it to you? Why would you risk yourselves?”

“Like I said, we saw what happened, we just want to do what we can.”

“Are you Resistance?”

“No. We’re just passing through and saw some trouble.”

Milig thought for a moment then sighed, “You have to understand, we’re not Resistance either. We only pass information and supplies to them. I don’t even have a way to contact them to tell them Tasso’s in trouble. And I don’t have weapons or codes or anything that would help you.”

“That’s ok. To start, we just need a way in.”

“I might be able to get you into the industrial district and _close_ to the interrogation center. But after that, you’re on your own.”

“Okay.”

“Each worker has a keycard that is scanned when we enter the industrial district, but the Cardassians don’t pay much attention to faces, only the cards. If you keep your heads down, don’t make eye contact, you might be able to slip past. Meet me here in the morning and I’ll have two keycards for you.”

“There’s a third man in our group.”

“Three, then. There’s a rear entrance to the interrogation center, but that’s all I know about it.”

“That’s helpful, thank you.”

Milig grabbed his forearm firmly, “If you really can help Tasso, you have my gratitude. But he can’t come back here. The Cardassians will tear this place apart looking for him and he _cannot_ be here. You’ll have to find the Resistance and they can take him from there.”

“I understand.”

“May the Prophets be with you.”

“With all of us.” He said as genuinely as he could.

* * *

Mal walked slowly with the group of workers on their way to the industrial district far too early in the morning after last night’s errand. She tended to be a pretty tough cookie, but take away a decent night’s sleep and she got a bit cranky. Two and that’s when heads would roll.

As they approached the gate, she made sure to keep her eyes on the ground. The crowd slowed to a plodding shuffle while each worker paused for the keycard on their sleeve to be scanned.

Milig moved in front of them to be scanned, then it was Jeff’s turn. The Cardassian at the checkpoint scanned the card while looking right over his head. One down.

Sam was up next. He kept his face down. Scanned and waved through.

Then it was Mal’s turn. Her keycard was scanned by the Cardassian, then he hesitated. Her heart rate jumped up, but outward she stayed steady. After a few seconds, she realized what the delay was. He was looking down her cleavage.

Finally, after he’d had his fill, he waved her through. She took a few steps to catch up with the others. Milig guided them to an inconspicuous spot and they gave the keycards back to him. “Walk with the Prophets.” He told them and hurried back to the rest of the workers.

Mal and her companions slipped away into the quickly vanishing shadows while the sun continued to rise. They reached the abandoned part of the district as evidenced by the accumulation of dust around the bases of the buildings just as they lost all cover of darkness.

Sam squatted down at the first doorway and began working to override the lock. Jeff and Mal hovered protectively over him, watching left, right and up.

A soft click told them he had the door unlocked, but it didn’t slide open for them. “There’s probably no general power to this whole area.” Sam explained, so they set to work forcing the doors open. He and Jeff held it far enough apart for Mal to wedge her body into the gap, then she pushed in opposite directions with her back and feet to widen it enough for them to duck in under her legs.

When they were through, she braced herself and pushed into the warehouse out of the way of the doors, which slammed shut, leaving them in darkness. With the sound of their breathing echoing in the massive space, they waited for their eyes to adjust.

Mal began to see faint shapes around them, which turned into dark objects. There was a cluster of silhouettes not far away that vaguely resembled a set of computer consoles. She heard rather than saw Sam move over to them.

A metallic click echoed through the place when he pulled off an access panel. “There ought to be some kind of backup battery here somewhere.”

“Just don’t electrocute yourself sticking your hands in there blindly like that.” Jeff said dryly.

Moments later one console hummed to life, casting a sickly green light that didn’t extend much beyond their immediate area. Sam tapped at the interface and managed to pull up a map of the district without needing a security clearance.

“It looks like we’re here.” He said pointing to a yellow dot on the map. “The entrance we came in is over here. These are all industrial and warehouses.” He said pointing to labels on the map that the implants in their eyes translated for them into Standard.

“Here.” Mal pointed out a building several blocks away from them that didn’t have a label. On an unsecured diagram, it would make sense for an interrogation center to be left unlabeled.

“Now, how do we get in?” Sam asked.

“Not sure yet.” Jeff said.

They’d need weapons at the very least. Mal turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Jeff followed.

“To get us some weapons.”

“I’ll come with you.”

She put her hand in the middle of his chest. “If my plan is going to work, it’ll be better for me to be alone.” She could just barely make out the concerned look on his face. “I’ll be fine.”

Without voicing his agreement, he simply walked with her to the door and helped her pry it open enough to slip through.

The mid-morning sun sliced through her vision, blinding her for several vulnerable minutes. The moment she could see well enough, she began seeking out a lone patrol.

By the time she found one, her vision had recovered. She took a moment to undo the top couple of clasps on her blouse and adjusted herself to show as much cleavage as possible. Then she strolled around the corner into the full view of the patrol.

“Stop.” He commanded and she obeyed. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” She said honestly.

He relaxed slightly, but remained wary.

“I can’t believe they’d trust a boy like you to stand guard.” She taunted.

The corner of his mouth twitched upward at the jab.

She approached him. “I bet you can’t even keep someone like me in line.”

“I can put you exactly where I want you.” He said, lowering his weapon to play along.

She stood directly in front of him and laughed a short, mocking laugh. “I’d like to see you try.”

He looked down at her body lustfully. “How much.”

Her mind raced, she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to find out what an appropriate price would be, but she kept the smooth smirk firmly on her face. “What do YOU think?”

He appraised her for a moment, “Two leks.”

She backed up slightly with an insulted harrumph, “Three.”

“You’d better be worth it.” He warned, holding up three coins.

She reached for them, might as well take his money, she was going to knock him out anyway.

He snatched the coins away into his fist. “ _After_ I know you’re worth it.”

She pursed her lips together then licked them, “Is there somewhere private we can go?”

He glanced around to see that no one saw him leave his post, then motioned her away to a narrow place between two buildings.

He followed close behind her just like she’d hoped. She calculated based on his height, distance and her reach, then swung her elbow back, right into his nose. While he reeled back in shock, she turned, grabbed the back of his head and slammed his already broken nose into her knee. With him doubled over, she jammed her elbow into the back of his neck to knock him out.

She bent quickly to pull the hand phaser off of his belt. She adjusted the power down to its lowest setting, placed it right behind his right ocular ridge and fired a short blast that would leave him dead within minutes.

After tucking the hand phaser into her waistband, she retrieved the phaser rifle off of his shoulder. She almost turned to leave, but then spotted a money pouch. She dug around inside to find ten coins. He was holding out on her!

Dropping the coins into her pocket, she crept back to the street. Now all she had to do was make her way back to the guys then into that interrogation center before somebody noticed this one missing.

* * *

Jeff hovered by the door, waiting for Mal to return. He shouldn’t have let her go by herself. Shifting impatiently, he glanced over at Sam who was in the process of stripping the console for as much usable tech that they could reasonably carry.

Jeff turned when he heard tapping on the door in the distinctly Human _shave and a haircut_. Immediately he began to pry open the doors.

As soon as the crack between the doors was wide enough, Mal’s slender fingers slipped through. Followed by an elbow and a shoulder. Finally, her face appeared and she squeezed her body through with a phaser rifle clattering against the door just before it shut behind her.

She handed the rifle over to him. “Here, you like a big weapon, right?” She said with a wink. Then to Sam, “Are you about done?”

“Yeah.” He sauntered over, “You two hold onto these.” He said, handing them several seemingly random components.

“Let’s get going then.” Jeff said.

* * *

Jeff and Sam studied the readout on the scanner Sam had found in the console while Mal kept watch. There was no cover here between the buildings, they needed to get inside quickly.

“One guard at the door and a couple of patrols three minutes apart.” Jeff said just loud enough for Mal to hear. “Plus, two cameras and what looks like a sensor grid.”

“I can take care of the cameras and sensors.” Sam said, also in a low tone.

“That just leaves the guard.” Jeff mused.

“If we could lure him away without alarming him enough to call it in, that might give us enough time to slip in between patrols.” Mal said.

“Any ideas?” He asked Sam. This was the part where he was especially glad to have brought an engineer along, even though that meant one more member of the team that could get into trouble.

Sam thought for a moment, “Those heating units we passed a few buildings back. if we cut the lead to the thermal exchange assembly, it will vent exanogen gas. The effect would be noisy but harmless, and it could be done to look like a maintenance failure.”

“I can do that.” Mal said without looking away from her vigil. “Jeff, you should stay here and cover Sam while he works on the sensors and cameras.”

“Agreed. How long will that take?”

“Five minutes. Maybe less.”

Five minutes was a long time to wait around right next to an enemy stronghold. Jeff hoped it was another one of those padded estimates Starfleet engineers were famous for.

After connecting one of the salvaged components to his scanner and an achingly long time to program it, same turned to Mal. “I’m almost ready, go ahead and initiate our diversion.”

As she hurried away, Jeff peered around the corner in time to see the patrol pass by, right on time. A moment later he heard a strange hiss behind him and by the time Mal returned, it had grown to a pitch that would definitely be noticeable to the guard.

Sam returned to the proximity display on the scanner and the blip that represented the guard began moving in the direction of the sound.

Without waiting for him to be fully out of position, Jeff and the others moved around the building toward the rear entrance. With a quick visual check down the street to be sure the guard was out of sight and the patrol wasn’t early, they hurried to the door.

Once again, Sam bent down to work the lock while he and Mal stood guard. As Jeff quickly scanned for lifesigns just on the other side of the door, dark spots on the ground and the wall caught his eye. They looked like they could be dried blood spatters, underscoring the violence of this place.

He checked the chronometer, “Less than a minute before the patrol is in sight.” And who knew how long until the guard would return after finding what appeared to be a simple maintenance issue.

The lock clicked softly, the door slid up into the wall and the three rushed inside to close themselves in. The first breath Jeff took inside the place made him gag. The air was hot and thick with the smell of sweat and blood. It was dark, too, and took a moment for their eyes to adjust from the bright sun outside.

As soon as they could see, they began assessing their surroundings. They found themselves at the back end of a short grey corridor. Sam scanned back and forth, “Equipment storage rooms.”

“I’m not sure I want to know what kind of ‘equipment’ a place like this has.” Jeff muttered.

They moved cautiously down the corridor towards a T intersection.

“Someone’s coming.” Sam whispered just as they began to hear two sets of footsteps in the corridor ahead. One, even and heavy, and the other, light and scuffling. Or struggling. The three of them dispersed to find cover behind the characteristic Cardassian architectural outcroppings.

When the pair came into view, he saw that it was indeed a Cardassian with a prisoner. A woman with her hands bound in front of her, being compelled forward by the Cardassian holding her firmly by the back of her hair. She suddenly rotated under his grip, crying out in pain from her hair being wrenched and drove her knee into his gut.

He bent over in pain but held onto her hair and swung her forward to slam her head into the wall. She crumpled to her knees but he hauled her backwards, raising his fist to strike.

Before Jeff realized what she was doing, Mal leapt from her hiding place. She barreled into his chest, shoulder first and rammed him against the wall. Then she hit him in the face with her elbow and the heel of her hand in rapid succession.

The other woman didn’t miss a beat, she sprung to her feet and wrapped her bound hands around the back of his head. She dropped her full body weight to jerk his head down while twisting it down into an unnatural angle. With a stomach-turning sound, his neck snapped and he fell forward onto her, knocking her to the deck and pinning her down.

Mal bent down to help her roll him off. “Thanks.” The woman said, already on her feet and beginning to drag the body away by the rubberized collar.

Without a word, Sam opened the doors to one of those storage closets for Mal and the woman to stash the body. Once they dropped it inside, Jeff and Sam joined them, closing the door behind them.

“So, who are you?” The woman asked while she found a release for the restraints on her wrists. “Are you Resistance?” Straight to the point.

Jeff glanced at the others, that was the second time they’d been asked that in less than twenty-six hours. They’d have to be more careful. “No. We’re just trying to help.”

She eyed them for a moment while she wiped blood off of her nose with the back of her dirty sleeve, then bent down to retrieve the Cardassian’s phaser and comm unit. “Well, I appreciate your help, then. I’m Ori.”

Jeff introduced them using their aliases. “Any idea how many prisoners are here?”

She shook her head, “I’ve been in solitary confinement for the past,” she paused to lean closer to the door control pad to see the date, “four days.”

By the looks of her, ‘solitary confinement’ here meant a bit more than just being locked in a windowless room. Besides the freshly bloodied nose she sported a black eye, a partly healed cut on her lip and a number of bruises at various stages of healing. She continued without noticing him staring. “When they brought me in, there were at least three others from my cell, plus several civilians they’ve rounded up trying to track us down. But I don’t know what’s happened since then.”

Jeff only nodded, thinking it through.

“Is there someone specific you’re looking for?” She asked.

“There was a boy arrested two evenings ago.” He said, deciding to be as open with her as possible. “Tasso.”

She closed her eyes and sighed, worry for the boy plain on her face. “You know him?”

“No. We just saw what happened and wanted to-”

“-help. Got it.” She said warily, glancing around the room. “Well, there’s not a lot we can do from in here. We’ll need to get to a computer terminal so I can disable the security systems and communication and get to the others.”

Sam scanned the corridor. “It’s clear.”

Ori opened the door and moved out without a moment’s hesitation. Sam, Mal and Jeff followed. She led them down the corridor to yet another intersection where she slowed to check for Cardassians, then dashed across to the other side.

Without waiting for them to catch up, she bent down at a door to override the lock, which she did considerably faster than Sam had. Jeff and the others could only hurry in behind her.

She seated herself at one of an array of consoles that filled the dark room and powered it up. “Secure that door, will you?”

As Jeff moved to do so, Sam sat next to her to watch what she was doing.

“I have a clerical-level security code I can use to gain limited access to the system.” She explained to him.

“How much does that get you?”

“Not much,” She paused while her bloody fingers danced across the controls, pulling up several interfaces simultaneously. “But, if I go into the file system… and run the aggregation subroutine with no parameters, it’ll kick us out into an error condition, and an option for maintenance… open that up on another console…” the next console over came to life, “I don’t have the password for that, so I try to log in with no credentials… it kicks me back into the login, but this time there’s a variable hidden in the background. And I take the numerical code from the file system error and use that as a password.” She input the code and the console unlocked, giving her full access. “It’s only through security level six, but it’ll get us everything we need.”

“A back door!” Sam said with awe.

“Exactly.” She continued on to sabotage the security system with her pilfered security access, explaining it all to Sam with terms like ‘locked in maintenance mode’, ‘source code’, ‘endless loop’ and so on. “…so, if anybody tried to hit the emergency alert, the whole thing locks down, but the modification is completely invisible until then.”

Then she began the process of disabling the external comm system. Sam sat equally transfixed by that process. Good thing, too, that seemed like exactly the kind of knowledge that might just get them to the end of this mission alive.

The moment she was finished, she pulled up the video feed of a bank of holding cells. “Okay, these are my people.” She said, indicating two people in one cell and one person in another cell. “And these two are a couple of our civilian contacts from the settlement.”

“Tasso’s not here.” Mal said, leaning over her shoulder.

Ori sighed, “No. He may be in the interrogation room, but there’s no surveillance in there.” She tapped some controls and the video was replaced by a schematic of the facility. “We’re here.” She pointed out their location. “The holding cells are here.” She showed them a room with three distinct segments. “And interrogation is here.” She pointed out a large room on the other side of the facility.

“If Tasso’s there,” Jeff said, “and we go for him first, we may not be able to get to the others. But if we go for the others first, we may not be able to get Tasso.”

“We’ll have to split up.” Mal said. “You and Ori. Me and Sam.”

Jeff glanced at the others to see that they agreed. “Okay, then what? Any ideas on how to get out of here?”

“How did you get in?” Ori asked.

“Distracted a guard and slipped in between patrols.” Sam said.

“That doesn’t exactly help us now.” She said pessimistically.

“Is this a transporter?” Mal asked, pointing to a room on the schematic.

Ori studied it for a moment, “Yes, but I don’t know how to operate a transporter, do you?”

“Yes.” She said.

Jeff could practically see the questions running through Ori’s head, but she kept them to herself for now. Instead, she searched through some drawers in the console, finally locating a comm unit. “I’m setting this to a secure channel.” She said, tapping at its controls then handed it to Sam, then pulled out another comm unit that she’d taken off of the Cardassian’s body earlier and did the same thing. “We’ll signal you when we’re in position.” She told them. “The ducts are safer than the corridors. They’ve started blocking them off to areas like the interrogation rooms and security office, but we’ll at least be able to get most of the way there.”

“After you.” Jeff said, lacing his fingers together to give her a boost.

She stepped into his hands and lifted up. She pushed and wiggled at the grate, nearly causing him to drop her when it finally came loose, then she slid it to the side and climbed in. Mal climbed in next, she was noticeably heavier even though they looked the same size.

As soon as Mal’s legs disappeared into the hole in the ceiling, Sam stepped into his hands and followed her up. Finally, both Mal and Ori leaned out to grasp Jeff’s wrists to pull him up.

“Good luck.” Mal said as she and Sam began to move away.

“Prophets be with you.” Ori replied from the opposite direction.

As hot and stuffy as it was down below, it was much worse here. He quickly began to feel beads of sweat forming on his neck and forehead. “Do you know Tasso?” He said, mainly to keep his mind occupied.

“Not really. I met him a few times when he delivered supplies to us, but I didn’t get to know him. Seems like a good kid, though.”

“What will you do with him? Doesn’t sound like he can go back home.”

“No, definitely not. We could set him up somewhere with a false identity, but there’s a danger to that. Usually when something like this happens to an informant or sympathizer, they end up joining us.” They turned a corner to find a barrier welded in place up ahead. “Here we are.”

She fished the comm unit out of her pocket and tapped a key to notify the others that they were in place.

* * *

“Shouldn’t be much farther.” Sam said hopefully.

“Feeling a little claustrophobic?” Mal couldn’t help but tease.

“Not at all.” He lied.

“Just think of it as a Jeffery’s tube.”

“A hot, dank Jeffery’s tube with hostile aliens below just waiting to blow our brains out.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Instead, she said, “Ori’s interesting.” It didn’t take a Betazoid to tell his interest had been piqued immediately.

“I guess so. I’d like to find out more about that back door.”

She couldn’t help a snort of laughter, “I _bet_ you’d like to get to know her back door.” Fortunately, they were nearing their destination and she shushed him to cut off his reply. When they couldn’t go any farther in the duct, she slowly leaned out over the grate to see a Cardassian standing guard at what must have been the door to the security office.

She nodded to Sam and pulled back to wait for the signal on the comm. It shouldn’t have taken Jeff and Ori much longer to reach their location and, sure enough, the indicator on the comm unit blinked twice. Mal pocketed it and motioned for Sam to stay where he was.

Leaning forward as far as she dared, she threaded her fingers through the holes in the grate and lifted it straight up without a sound. The grate was heavy and her arms and ab muscles began to feel the strain in the precarious position, but she slowly lifted it up and to the side. As soon as Sam helped her set it down, she allowed herself a few deep, silent breaths, then scooted herself close to the opening, right above the head of the guard.

She balanced herself over the opening and dropped straight down onto his shoulders, hooking her feet around his ribs. Then she threw her weight backward and they both toppled over. Her hands made contact with the floor in a brief handstand and she heaved him over and body slammed him into the deck.

While he was still stunned, she sprang back to her feet and as he began to push himself off of the floor, she kicked him in the side of his head to knock him out.

She bent to collect the phaser and phaser rifle off of him while Sam dropped down out of the duct. “How quickly can you get the door open?” She asked, handing him the hand phaser.

Instead of replying, he grabbed the unconscious Cardassian’s hand and lifted his thumb to the door controls, stopping just before making contact. Of course, she rolled her eyes.

On a count of three she nodded for him to open the door. As the door was still sliding up into the ceiling, she threw herself onto the floor to slide in. The Cardassian at the security desk looked right over her to see an empty doorway and she took his moment of uncertainty to roll onto her back and open fire, dropping him before he could even reach for his weapon.

With the eyes of the startled Bajoran prisoners focused on her, she stood up and blasted the force field controls.

The three Ori had indicated were with her launched out of the cells as soon as they were free. “Who are you?” One of them said.

“Jopir.” She said, giving him her alias. “We’re with Ori… sort of.”

“Jice, Kajeal, grab some weapons.” He said to the other two. “I’m Selo. There’s one more prisoner-”

“Tasso? Ori and my partner are on their way to get him.”

“Do we have a rendezvous point?”

“Transporter room. I imagine you have somewhere we can beam to.” She said, glancing at the comm unit to see that the other pair was waiting for her to reply. She held it up to show Selo and tapped the key.

* * *

Ori had taken down the guard outside the interrogation room as easily as Kee had done when she helped them escape Cardassian custody a week ago. Had that really only been a week? It seemed like ages ago already.

She automatically grabbed the phaser rifle off of the guard and pressed herself against the wall on one side of the door. Jeff did the same on the other side. When he’d nodded his readiness, she reached down and tapped a code into the keypad.

On the split second visual sweep of the room he saw that there were two Cardassians at the center of the room on either side of a chair containing the slumped form of Tasso facing away from him. A third Cardassian sat at a console at the far end of the room.

Since Jeff was positioned to the left of Ori, he took the Cardassian on the left, firing two rapid shots into his chest. Ori did the same to the one on the right but with only one shot.

The last Cardassian managed to duck behind his desk. Jeff and Ori dove for cover behind a console and moved to the side to keep Tasso out of the crossfire.

“Cover me, I’ll try to get around to the side.” Jeff said. After a slight nod from her, he moved quickly to the edge of the console. He caught just the edge of a raised eyebrow from her as she prepared to provide cover fire. She fired rapidly toward the Cardassian and Jeff slipped quietly from one console to the other. He edged closer to a position where he would have a clean shot.

Despite feeling vulnerable with an intense exchange of weapons fire just on the other side of a mere console, he leaned beyond the edge. _Just a little farther_. He told himself. He inched out until he could see a boot, then a leg, and, finally, the Cardassian’s whole body. Jeff waited until he raised up to return fire toward Ori, then he silently lifted his phaser, lined up the shot and fired once.

The Cardassian barely had time to register what had happened before he slumped to the floor.

Ori was on her feet immediately, moving toward Tasso. “Secure the door.” She told Jeff. “That console.” She pointed out a console and he got to work engaging the door lock.

She bent down in front of Tasso and cupped his chin to lift his face towards hers. “Tasso.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Tasso!”

He lifted his groggy eyes, “Ori?”

She smiled up into his face, “Yes. It’s me.”

“You’re so pretty.” He slurred.

She sighed, “And you’re very, very drugged.” She said as she worked to release the restraints on his wrists.

“But you’ll still be pretty tomorrow.” He managed to say.

“He’s got a point.” Jeff offered.

“Can you stand up?” She asked, ignoring the comment.

He moved forward in the chair, but instead of standing, he slid to his knees.

“Woop, wrong direction.” She said, bending down to hook his arm around her neck. “Alright, let’s go up this time.” She said and heaved him upward. As much as she struggled under his weight, he must not have been doing much of the work.

She managed to pull the comm unit out of her pocket and tossed it to Jeff. “Find out what’s going on with the others.” And she began walking Tasso toward the door.

Jeff pressed the control on the comm that would activate a silent indicator on the other unit and waited for a response.

“Where are we going?” Tasso mumbled.

“We’re getting you out of here.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“I know.” She said patiently. If he was going to be this talkative, they’d have a hard time sneaking around out there.

 _“Did you get the boy?”_ Mal’s voice came through tinny on the small speaker.

“Yes. You?” He said, starting to search through drawers.

_“We got ‘em. Moving out now.”_

“Tasso’s heavily drugged, it’s going to slow us down.” He dug around past equipment and instruments he could only guess at their grim purposes to find what he was looking for, a scanner.

 _“We won’t leave without you.”_ She promised then closed the channel.

Jeff hurried to join Ori and Tasso at the door and began scanning the corridor. There was no one on the other side. With the security system disabled, nobody had been able to alert the others that there was a problem.

With a nod from him, Ori tapped the pad to open the door and they shuffled out.

* * *

Jeff and his cohorts pressed themselves against the wall of a side corridor while they listened to approaching footsteps. Ori gently covered Tasso’s mouth to silence his constant drugged monologue.

The footsteps sped up to a run and two soldiers passed the intersection, heading in the direction of the transporter room just as the sound of phaser fire began to reach them. Ori glanced at Jeff with a look that didn’t need any interpretation. As soon as the corridor was clear, they moved as quickly as they could toward the firefight.

Jeff readied his phaser and took point while Ori, still supporting Tasso, brought up the rear. They were only a short distance away in the relatively small compound, it took them less than two minutes to near the fighting.

He stopped just before the last corner. Ori gently lowered Tasso to sit on the floor while she joined Jeff to peer around the corner. They found five Cardassians taking cover behind the edging between corridor segments, all facing away from them.

The sound of more approaching from another corridor told them they had to make their move fast. Without having to coordinate their actions, they both leaned out far enough to shoot at them. Jeff caught one in the back before the others started to respond and as he continued firing as long as he could, he saw in his peripheral vision two more go down.

As soon as the two remaining Cardassians changed position to return fire, Jeff and Ori pulled back. Immediately a barrage of weapons fire originating behind the Cardassians lit up the corridor. When it stopped, Jeff peeked around the corner and through the haze and saw the last two on the ground.

Ori was already lifting Tasso back up and they hobbled toward the transporter room while Jeff fired toward the approaching footsteps. They slipped into the smoke that was pouring out of a ruptured plasma conduit as bolts of phaser fire sliced past them. Blinded and gasping for breath, they groped their way to an open door and hands grasped them and pulled them inside.

Through his stinging vision, Jeff saw Mal at the transporter controls and the other prisoners assembling on the transporter pad. “We can do five at a time.” She told him. “Energizing.” She said as Sam and four Bajorans disappeared.

Mal worked to program an auto transport while Jeff helped Ori coax the confused and unwilling Tasso onto the pad. As they were taking their positions, the Cardassians in the corridor began forcing the doors open.

Jeff blasted arbitrarily into the opening while Mal dashed onto the platform. He ceased firing just as he felt the transporter effect sweep them away.

* * *

“Where are we?” Jeff asked.

“Brajya City. They say they have a base here.” Mal said. Unfortunately, the base was protected by a scattering field, so they couldn’t beam directly in. And, according to the transporter’s sensors, there was a large number of Cardassian bio signs in the vicinity of the base. So, they’d chosen an empty alley way more than ten blocks away.

“This way.” Selo said, beginning to lead the way.

Tasso didn’t seem to be slowing them down any more than caution did. They’d made it seven blocks and through three zig-zagging turns before they heard the sounds of a patrol up ahead.

The conspicuously large group split up to duck behind refuse containers and grime-covered barrels while the pair of Cardassians passed. Mal checked and re-checked to be sure her entire body was hidden. Then they slowly emerged from hiding to continue on their way.

Just as they had all along, they scurried through the next intersection one or two at a time. Those who had weapons kept them concealed, but prepared to pull them out at a moment’s notice.

After a couple more intersections, they had to be close. Finally, Selo stopped at what looked like an abandoned hotel with a boarded-up door. With Kajeal and Jice keeping watch, he pulled at some of the boards and a whole section came off in once piece. He reached in and unlocked the door with a code on a hidden panel.

The door swung open and one by one they crawled through the gap in the boards into a dark entry way with dusty shafts of light streaming in between the planks on the windows.

Selo was the last in and he pulled the boards into place behind him. He and the other resistance members climbed what was once a grand staircase as though they were returning home. When they reached the upper level, they continued up two more floors on another staircase, exiting the stairwell before they reached a section where the risers had broken through. On purpose, maybe?

In silence, they followed to an elevator. Selo and Kajeal worked their fingers into the space between the doors and pulled them open to reveal the elevator car stuck part way between the floor they were on and the one below with the empty shaft above.

Kajeal stepped right on top and began climbing. Selo stayed at the doors and motioned for the two civilians, Aijea and Krile, to go next. “It’s okay. It hasn’t moved in over a decade.”

They hesitated, but followed. “Do you think you can climb?” He asked Tasso.

“I think so.” He said, finally seeming to come out of the drugged fog. He slowly followed the other three, then Ori, then Sam.

Jeff gave her a quick shrug and followed.

Mal leaned inside the shaft and looked up to see only Sam and Jeff still inside. It looked like they were only climbing up one floor. She stepped inside onto the roof of the elevator and had a sudden flashback to that time she’d climbed down a turbolift shaft to try to rescue a pair of crewmen that had been stuck inside for hours. The moment she put her weight onto the top of the lift, it had given way and plunged down five decks. She’d hung onto the railing and the crewmen survived with only a few broken bones, but that feeling of vertigo got her heart pounding now.

Fortunately, by the time she’d fully registered the memory, she’d almost already reached the top. She passed the lip of the floor and two pairs of hands reached down for hers. One was Jeff and the other was someone new. They lifted her the rest of the way up and she stepped out of the way for them to do the same to those behind her.

She’d expected to come into another hallway like before, but the entire floor seemed to have been gutted with the exception of the elevator shaft, stairwell and a few bearing walls. Crates of supplies and probably weapons stood stacked around the place. To one side there was a bank of consoles with people seated at some of them. Other people sat around working on weapons or other pieces of equipment.

A middle-aged woman walked purposefully toward the group. “Ori, Selo, Jice, Kajeal.” She said with relief. “How did you get into the city? They have it completely locked down.” She didn’t seem surprised to see strangers suddenly appear in her base, they must have surveillance down below.

“Edri. It’s a long story, but we were able to transport in.” Ori said.

Edri eyed Mal and her companions with suspicion as she took Ori firmly aside and motioned for someone to attend to Tasso, Aijea and Krile who were whisked away. Selo, Jice and Kajeal also disappeared, leaving Mal, Jeff and Sam standing awkwardly alone.

Edri and Ori spoke quietly enough that Mal couldn’t make anything out clearly, only the occasional unclear syllable. She couldn’t quite tell if Ori was in trouble for bringing them here, but her posture remained confident as she explained herself. Edri’s occasional glace over at them confirmed who they were discussing.

Gradually Edri’s body language relaxed and finally she nodded her approval, then returned. “I’m told we have you to thank for getting my people out.”

“We were just trying to help.” Jeff said.

“So Ori tells me. She says you’re not Resistance.”

“No.”

She pursed her lips doubtfully, “You broke into a secure Cardassian facility, rescued prisoners, you know how to operate a transporter, you clearly have combat experience and you’re _not_ Resistance. I find that hard to believe.”

“We would prefer to avoid discussing our past. We just saw someone that needed our help and now we’d like to move on.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not going to be so easy. See, you beamed in here, but without a transporter, we have no way to get you back out as long as the city is in lockdown. And there is no way to get access to a transporter here. We’ve tried and lost good people in the attempt.”

“Do you have any idea how long this lockdown will be in place?” Mal asked.

“Days or months, there’s no way to tell. They’re looking for us and they don’t give up easily. This place is scanned daily and I have to have people working twenty-six hours a day to maintain the scattering field.” She indicated the people at the consoles. “Once the Cardassians let up on travel restrictions again, we have ways of getting you out. But for now, you’ll have to stay here.”

“We understand.”

“You’ll have to work for your food while you’re here, though.” She warned.

Jeff smiled, “Of course.” Maybe they could even pick up a few of those tricks Ori had used.

* * *

“Are you sure we can’t convince you to stay?” Edri said. It had been almost three weeks before the city lockdown let up.

“Yes, we’re sure.” Jeff said, though if it hadn’t been for the mission, it might have actually been tempting. These people were smart, cunning, noble and, most of all, desperate to save their race. The classic underdog story.

She reluctantly handed him a red-labeled isolinear rod that contained forged travel paperwork. “You can’t take weapons or any contraband equipment, in case you’re searched.

“I understand.” He said and handed over the phaser he’d been carrying all this time. The building had been physically searched twice in the time they’d been there. The scouts never made it past the third floor, but they’d had to be ready for a firefight at a moment’s notice.

* * *

With the lockdown lifted, they’d been able to travel the streets in relative safety, only being stopped and searched once on the way to the transportation hub. Looking up and down the rows of people waiting to be picked up, Jeff felt unnervingly out of place. Almost everyone here was Cardassian and the few Bajorans here were well fed and well dressed. Collaborators. He and the others were supposed to remain neutral, but they’d spent enough time on the planet that just the sight of collaborators filled him with disgust.

Before anyone could question whether they really belonged here, a ground transport vehicle pulled up in front of them with an anti-grav whine.

He leaned down to the Bajoran woman in the driver’s seat. "I've never seen the city so green.” He said, knowing full well that the city wasn’t remotely green.

"Yes, it's because of all of the rain we've been having.” She repeated the first response in the code phrase.

“We must have had at least five centimeters of rain.”

“Ten.”

With that settled, he handed her the isolinear rod and she slid it into a slot. When she had verified the information, she pressed a key to open the doors for them. Mal and Sam slid into the back while Jeff took the front seat next to the driver, who he realized was very pregnant.

“So, ah, been doing this long?” He tried to make small talk as the vehicle rose a few centimeters off of the roadway and started forward.

She cast a brief, unamused glance his way but otherwise ignored him.

_No conversation, then._

They’d traveled only a short distance through the city when they reached a queue for the checkpoint. They crept forward slowly as the line moved. After agonizingly slow progress, they approached a pair of Cardassian soldiers, on either side of the vehicle.

Their driver hung her arm out the window as she pulled up, holding his isolinear rod casually between her third and fourth fingers. The Cardassian on her side apathetically held out a padd for her to scan her thumb, then with a smooth movement, she flipped the rod to her thumb and first finger and held it out to him.

Jeff worked to appear relaxed as the Cardassian on his side peered in at the three passengers.

The one on the driver’s side thumbed through their travel permits on his padd, glancing inside the vehicle once, then handed the rod back to her, who slid it back where she’d put it the first time. Another few seconds later the barrier moved aside and they were permitted to continue. A line of green light swept through the vehicle as they passed through a scanning arch, then they were out in the open.

Their driver punched up the acceleration and they joined the other traffic on an elevated high-capacity roadway. As soon as they were in place among the other vehicles, her posture relaxed noticeably and she reached over to the computer to tap a few controls. Staticky music suddenly blared loudly in the interior. It almost sounded like the classical punk music his roommate back at the Academy used to listen to at a similar volume.

“What is this?” He asked loud enough to be heard over the music.

She cocked her head at him without her eyes leaving her task. “You haven’t heard the broadcast before?” She said in a surprisingly friendly tone of voice compared to her earlier demeanor.

“No.”

“It’s a transmission on a frequency the Spoonheads don’t monitor. When the Resistance isn’t using it to communicate, they play prohibited music.”

He listened to the lyrics for a moment. From what he could tell through all of the noise, static and shouting, it was clear why the Cardassians would ban such music and why the Resistance would broadcast it.

Seeing an opportunity, he activated the implant in his eye to record the conversation. “It’s so dangerous to work with the Resistance. Why risk it?”

She rested her hand on her swollen belly affectionately. “I want her to grow up in a better world than this.”

“Aren’t you scared of what will happen to you and your baby if they find out?”

She laughed with something between anxiety and actual amusement, “Terrified.”

As he searched for a way to keep her talking, he revised his earlier conclusion. The two types of people under the Occupation weren’t the fearful and the fearless, but rather those who were controlled by their fear and those who took action in spite of it.


End file.
